The Disney Experiment
by Baritales
Summary: When an ancient threat, once thought long gone, rises from the shadows, a band of unlikely heroes are brought together to keep the world from splitting at its seams. Starring characters from American Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Kim Possible, Phineas & Ferb and Fillmore.
1. Do You Believe in Dragons?

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
****Scene 1 - Do You Believe in Dragons?**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's _Phineas & Ferb_, _Dave the Barbarian_, and _Fillmore_. I do not own any of these characters. _

Too much noise. Too many people.

Those were the first thoughts that came to Major Monogram's mind when he arrived at the site of what he was told was 'the biggest catastrophe the Organization has ever had the displeasure of encountering". Of course, it wasn't like he expected any better from the unprofessional buffoons currently working the area. They were mostly the research types—scientists and tenderfoots who had no real experience working with anything other than theories and test tubes. And right now, they were making a huge mess of the scene, unwittingly trampling over what could have been important forensic evidence.

Nonetheless, Monogram held his calm, strolling past the warning tapes with a cool that only came with his many decades of experience. His aide, Carl, was already there. Bless the boy; he had only recently been promoted from intern to general staff, finally making his affiliation with the Organization official. That didn't stop him from making a huge mess of things, though; Monogram sighed resignedly when Carl tripped over an evidence bag, spilling his cup of juice all over it.

"What's the status, Carl?" asked the Major, though he already knew the answer.

The freckle-faced boy spun round at the sound of his boss' voice. "Sir, you're here! It's pretty terrible sir. Everything's a mess—oh, sorry about that."

Monogram waited till Carl was done brushing off juice from a young female scientist's blouse and recovering from the stinging slap that the gesture invited. Then he said, "Orientate me to the ground, Carl."

Carl nodded and took him on a tour of the site. It was huge, bigger than Monogram had anticipated. The local authorities had run out of yellow tape to cordon off the whole area, and had improvised using DIY signs made with paper, markers and string. Rubble and debris were scattered all about, the remnants of what, Monogram could only guess. What was left of the ground was upturned and scorched black—the Major could feel the heat beneath the soles of his combat boots. And in the center of the site, as gargantuan as the burden of global security that weighed on Monogram's shoulders, was a gaping abyss.

There were the bodies as well, charred beyond recognition.

Monogram cringed at the extent of the destruction. "Is that…purple fire?"

Carl followed his boss' gaze and saw the indigo flames flickering on a pile of cadavers, heaped atop one another. He nodded to Monogram, who gave Carl a questioning look. The boy shrugged in reply.

"Do we know who did it?"

Carl shook his head. "Not yet, sir."

"Well, any suspects? Drakken? Grundler? Doofenshmirtz?"

Looking around to make sure no one was listening, Carl whispered, "We sent our Anthropomorphs to check up on every single one of our major suspects, and they all had credible alibis. None of them had anything to do with this."

Monogram coughed irritably. The Anthropomorph Division was a top-secret branch of the Organization which comprised of genetically-enhanced animal agents. Only four people on the planet knew about its existence, and two of them were Monogram and Carl, who had unfortunately stumbled upon their files and was sworn to secrecy at the risk of his own life. To talk about the Anthropomorphs so plainly like that, with dozens of knowledge-starved scientists about, was one step towards the edge of a major security breach.

Bristling his moustache, Monogram let the folly pass this time. Carl, clearly unaware of the magnitude of his blunder, went on, "Besides, what would any of the usual bad guys want with a village of superstitious temple-goers?"

"The question is: what were they looking for?"

The voice belonged to neither Monogram nor Carl. Both turned to see a bespectacled, African-American man with a clean scalp approaching them. He was young, barely older than Carl, but bore the gait and eyes of one well beyond his years. The uniform was similar to Monogram's, except where the Major's was starched to perfection, this man's clothing was creased and worn out. Monogram let out another sigh, this one with a thick hint of annoyance.

"Captain Fillmore. A pleasure, as always. I assume you have an answer for your own query?"

"Pleasure's all mine, sir," said Fillmore flatly. "And no, I don't have an answer. But I do have a theory."

"Do tell."

"This used to be the temple of Argon the Ageless, an ancient warrior who wielded a powerful weapon. Legend has it this weapon, a broadsword, was passed on to a prince, who eventually returned it to the place where it was forged and buried it in a stone seal."

"Oh, I know that story!" Carl exclaimed proudly, then shrank back under Fillmore's scarily blank stare.

"Fairytales and myths?" said Monogram impatiently. "I hope this isn't your only lead, Captain."

"It isn't. I also found this."

He raised a thumb and a finger, and between them was what looked like the tip of a spearhead. Only this spearhead had to be really large and wickedly curved. Also, it was deep purple. Monogram squinted at it and made a sniffing sound.

"I know fancy legends don't impress you, but tell me, Major," said Fillmore, conveniently ignoring Carl, who was straining to get a look, "do you believe in dragons?"


	2. Better Than Alligators in the Sewers

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 2 – Better Than Alligators in the Sewers**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's _American Dragon _and_Dave the Barbarian_. I do not own any of these characters._

On the other side of the world, in the sewers of downtown Manhattan, a dragon zoomed across the grime and water like a crimson blur. Just ahead of it, two terrified goblins made a dash for the nearest crossroad. They eventually came to one, and took a moment to wonder if they should split up or stick together.

That moment was costly, as the dragon sped forward and grabbed the closest goblin by its exposed green neck. Its partner-in-crime, sensing he would now be flying solo, hauled his bag of loot and ran for it, taking the left tunnel. The dragon flung the first goblin into a wall, knocking it out, then went after the escapee with a furious roar. The sound reverberated across Manhattan's sewage system, shaking the very foundations of the city. But the dragon wasn't concerned; all that mattered now was its prey, which was about to get away.

So the dragon did what all dragons were famed and feared for: it breathed fire.

A jet of red-hot flame escaped from the dragon's nostrils, steaming up the water and making a straight shot for its target. The goblin screeched in agony as the flame spread across his leathery skin, and made a desperate attempt to claw at its opponent.

But the dragon was hovering well out of his reach, watching with cold and lethal intensity. It would get its prey, alive or charbroiled. So the goblin did the only thing he could do; he dropped his loot, lay on his back and roll about in the sewer waters.

Wrong move.

The dragon's tail coiled around him like a deadly serpent, its enchanted scales immune to its own flames. It gripped the goblin tight, not enough to kill, but sufficient for immobilization. And, very slowly, the goblin burned, wasting away, till all he was left with was his poorly-constructed armor, and a blackened goblin skeleton.

The dragon increased its pressure, and the skeleton was dust, the armor chunks of scrap metal. Satisfied, it picked up the sack of loot and headed back the way it had come. The other goblin had woken up and escaped, but it didn't matter. The dragon's bloodlust was sated for now. It would get the rogue creature another time.

The thick hairs of the dragon's mane tingled as it moved through the sewers, an indication that danger was lurking close by. It paused and sniffed the air, senses heightened by its own instincts. A shadow flitted through the waters, and a sound like a serpent's hiss crept along the underground tunnels. The dragon reared its back, then whipped about, arms outstretched, claws sinking into…

Nothing. Just the shadows, playing tricks. The dragon scanned the sewers, its eyes picking up every little detail, ever rivet and screw, nook and cranny. Still nothing. The winged behemoth clenched its jaws in frustration: a dragon's senses rarely failed, especially when honed to a keen edge through years of strict, rigorous training.

Returning to the surface, the dragon found itself in a deserted back alley of the city. Seeing and hearing no one about, it closed its dark eyes and concentrated. There was a burst of blue light and flame, and in the dragon's place stood a boy in his late teens, with jet-black hair, a button nose and hard, obsidian eyes. The boy slung the sack over his shoulders and, looking around cautiously once more, made his way out of the alley. When he was a footstep away from the main street, he made a hard left.

And stepped right into a brick wall.

Or rather, he stepped _through _it, for the boy was no longer in Manhattan. Instead, he was on an upper deck overlooking the dance floor of a dilapidated club. A large disco ball spun in the centre of the club, suspended in midair by nothing visible to the human eye, casting blinding lights of a variety of unworldly colors all around the room. The décor lacked thematic and each piece of furniture seemed very out of place, as if someone had thoughtfully ensured no two objects came from the same era. On a far wall, a gaudy neon sign read: Udrogoth Club.

What seemed even more out of place, however, were the club's patrons. They weren't the overdressed, over-made-up, overly-desperate crowd one expected to see in a typical Manhattan club. In fact, they were hardly even human. The dance floor was occupied by smelly trolls, winged pixies, snotty elves and daemons with flaming hair. Among the crowd was a couple of dancers who appeared human enough, but under the spinning lights of the enchanted disco balls revealed themselves to be something far more sinister.

Scanning the faces in Udrogoth, the boy-who-was-a-dragon spotted the man he was looking for. He went down the creaking wooden steps towards the bar, where a leprechaun half his height sat sipping a Shirley Temple, his curled-toed shoes dangling off the edge of his seat.

The boy took a seat beside the leprechaun, placing the sack on the bar counter. The bartender said nothing, but watched the transaction warily.

"Jake Long!" piped the leprechaun in a thick Irish accent. "Does this mean ye succeeded?"

"Would you expect anything less?"

The leprechaun sniffed the sack and grinned widely. "Many thanks, American Dragon!"

"Whatever," said Jake, sliding off his seat. "Take better care of your gold next time." He was about to leave when he turned to the bartender and added, "I don't like your crowd. There'll be an audit soon, you hear?"

The bartender, a purple-skinned elf with serpentine eyes, gulped nervously and gave a curt nod.

With that, the American Dragon strut out of the magical club, stepping into the mundane, Manhattan streets.

Stuffing the sack into his top hat, the leprechaun said, "Bless that boy, Darcrow. Straightened out much since his younger days, no? None a' that street slang no more."

The bartender named Darcrow shrugged, not really listening. He was content on keeping an eye on the portal into his club, hoping quite hopelessly there would be no more unexpected—and clearly unwanted—surprises again.


	3. Close Encounter

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 3 – Close Encounter**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_American Dragon_,_Dave the Barbarian_, and_Fillmore_. I do not own any of these characters._

Jake smelled the stranger before he saw him, and by then half of Jake's body was already out the Udrogoth portal. He swore under his breath, deciding there was no point in retreating back into that hellhole. After all, the man had seen him. So instead of trying to hide, Jake said, "What's up?"

The stranger—a bald man in military dress and frameless glasses—tilted his head, as if sizing Jake up. "Cool trick, walking through the wall, Mr. Long."

Putting a fist behind his back, Jake narrowed his eyes. "How'd you know my name?"

The man smiled, but said nothing. The dragon in Jake sensed another presence nearby, some slight movement in the shadows, barely noticeable. A dog, possibly, or a cat. Animal partners that lurked in the darkness wouldn't surprise Jake; after all, he had enough of Fu Dog to know these things were to be expected in his line of work. The fist he hid became a clawed dragon's hand.

"Who are you?"

There was no change in the man's expression. "I'm Captain Cornelius Fillmore. Pleasure to meet you."

He hadn't mentioned his 'invisible' friend, thought Jake, and neither was he making a move. What did he want? Jake felt he wouldn't get any answers if he asked, but he tried anyway. In reply, the man held up something, something which made Jake drop his claws and jaw.

"Where…where'd you get that?!"

"So you recognize it," said the Captain, his smile widening. What exactly was he playing at?

"Alright, enough!" Jake snapped. "Who sent you? Rotwood? The Huntsclan? Tell me or—"

"Or what? Are you gonna 'dragon up' on me?"

This was unsettling—this man, the things he knew, the way he remained so calm in spite of knowing them. Around these parts, the American Dragon had a reputation, one which normally left the lesser beings unsettled when they saw him. Jake's instincts were screaming now, telling him something was dreadfully wrong, that there was more to this man than meets the eye. As if he didn't already know that.

"What do you know about me?" he asked the bald man.

"I know a lot about you, Jake," said Fillmore. Now his smile faded, and when he continued, his voice was quiet. "I know you used to work with a team. I know how dangerous some of your missions can get. And, on one particularly dangerous day, I know you got two of your friends, neither of whom had any special training or powers like yours, to be bait for a Manticore gone wild. But the plan didn't go too well, and your friends—"

Blindingly fast, Jake shot forward, claws around Fillmore's neck, pushing the man's back against the wall. Cracks formed against the old bricks. There was a bark further down the alleyway, but Fillmore held up a hand, and it subsided to a low growl.

The Captain grunted, managing to say, "You're strong. That's good. I had to be sure."

Jake's eyes were no longer the obsidian-black they used to be; now they were burning a fiery red. He growled angrily, "Tell me what you're here for, or I'll burn your bald head to ashes!"

"The world needs your help, Jake Long. The American Dragon is needed…"

Jake released him, and Fillmore fell to the floor, clutching his swollen neck. If he had been intimidated by the dragon's threats, he didn't show it. Returning to his feet, Fillmore straightened out his uniform and said, "I've studied you and the magical world you've been protecting for a long time, Mr. Long, and I have reason to believe your vocation may be at stake."

"That talon… It belongs to him, doesn't it?" asked Jake. He was looking at the floor now, his brow furrowed, eyes shut in a mixture of sorrow and…was it terror? Then the moment of weakness passed, and he looked up at Fillmore again. "You still haven't told me who sent you."

"I come from the Organization. Everything we do is about keeping the world safe. We keep tabs on known criminals and psychopaths that pose threats on a global scale. We have resources that allow us to deal with them—manpower, weapons, information, access to the most secure networks. What we don't have is knowledge of the magical world which, I hate to say, even my boss doesn't think exists."

"How do I know I can trust you?" said Jake.

Fillmore shook his head. "You don't. But what you _need _to know is that only a week ago, a remote village in Northern Ireland was completely incinerated by an unknown force. The entire village—men, women and children—was burned to the ground. No survivors."

Jake swallowed hard. "What has that gotta do with the magical world? Could have been a terrorist or something."

"In that village there was a temple, dedicated to the ancient hero, Argon the Ageless. Argon possessed a weapon of incredible power, a sword that was said to have been sealed in his tomb. That tomb just so happens to be beneath the temple in the village."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"That was also where we found the talon," Fillmore added. He bit back a cocky smile, knowing he had already won.

"I banished that monster a long time ago," said Jake, running a hand through his hair. There seemed to be a weight upon him, planting him to the floor, causing him to sink. Fillmore almost pitied him. "He was supposed to be trapped for a thousand years. He couldn't have gotten out."

Fillmore made no reply, just waited.

"Fine," said the American Dragon, finally.

"Good," said Fillmore. "We're preparing a team for you as we speak—"

"No," Jake cut in. "This dragon flies solo, or no go."

Fillmore raised an eyebrow.

"I've lost enough teammates. You have me. Tell me what you need and I'll get it done. But no team."

A blast of light, and the boy had taken to the skies before Fillmore could rebut. Not that it would matter; he had profiled Jake Long as stubborn and arrogant, yet not lacking in compassion. And he had been right, as he always was—most of the time. For now, this task was done.

Turning towards the back alley, Fillmore stepped into the shadows. He beckoned to a brown dachshund wearing a fedora. "C'mon, D, let's get outta here." He reached out to a nearby pipe and tapped it five times in a specific rhythm, and a hole appeared in the wall where the pipe was. Man and dog stepped through the hole, which closed, swallowing them up.


	4. Mission Kim Possible

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 4 – Mission Kim Possible**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters._

Hanging over a pit of anacondas, suspended by a fraying rope around his ankle was not how Ron Stoppable pictured his date would go. He had planned a peaceful walk in the park, some ice-cream and a large cup of lemonade. They would sit by Middleton Lake and feed ducks till sunset, then have dinner at Bueno Nacho and catch a movie thereafter.

Of course, that was a foolish notion, when his girlfriend was none other than teen heroine Kim Possible. Kim Possible, who thwarted evil with ease. Kim Possible, who never failed a mission. Kim Possible, who could do anything. At least, that was what her website said. Ron knew better—there were many things Kim couldn't do, like resist a sale at Club Banana, or stop him and Rufus from stuffing themselves senseless with grande-sized nacos. Or ignore her homework.

Yet for each of her flaws, there were five other redeeming qualities which Kim Possible possessed. A world in need of saving? She was there. A rip in the space-time continuum? Been there, done that. Killer robots invading Japan? No big.

That was Kim, and Ron loved her dearly as pal and girlfriend, confidante and partner. But right now, all he wanted to do was scream at her, which he did quite often. In fact, he was already yelling her name, at the top of his voice.

"A little busy here, Ron!" Kim shouted back.

'Busy' barely even began to describe Kim's situation. Currently, she was caught between a platoon of monkey ninjas and an orangutan samurai, not to mention that her boyfriend was several threads away from sudden death. Just another typical day in the life of Kim Possible.

Performing a flawless cartwheel and overhead flip across the subterranean lair, Kim planted her heel into the ugly face of the orangutan. She pivoted, then kicked off, landing behind the monkey platoon. They spun round and maneuvered swiftly around her, cutting off her escape route. Then, baring their teeth, the shozoku-clad primates pounced.

"So not what I need right now…" Kim muttered.

She dropped low as the monkeys closed in, then pulled the tail of the closest chimp towards her, swinging it like a Morningstar. Like discarded toys, the other monkeys were flung aside, their attack foiled by one of their own. They crashed into a railing, destroying it and falling into the death pit reserved for Ron. Kim tossed her makeshift (and disorientated) weapon aside and took the momentary victory to escape the battlefield in style, with a leap and forward tumble.

A flashing katana cut her path, nicking off a strand of hair as she attempted to turn her momentum into a kick. The genetically-altered orangutan, having learnt its lesson, parried the attack perfectly, countering with a backhand slap that left Kim more insulted than hurt. Side-stepping a forward thrust, she reached into her back pocket and retrieved her powder kit.

"Please be the right one," she said as she threw the entire kit hard as she could, holding her breath.

The contents of the kit exploded, producing a gas-cloud of noxious fumes. The orangutan samurai, which ultimately proved more orangutan than samurai, took a deep whiff of the green gas and fell on the ground in a heap, snoring loudly.

"Kim!"

Ron was still screaming. Kim made a face; she had forgotten him in all the chaos. With a running start, she ripped a hairdryer from a belt and took careful aim, launching a grappling hook towards the lair's rafters. In no time she was swinging through the air, inching ever closer to Ron…

Drats! A sudden weight on her thigh dragged her down in mid-swing. One of the monkeys had recovered and made a jump at her. Left hanging, Kim flailed and kicked violently, trying in vain to shake off the chimp, at the same time attempting to regain some momentum.

No good. Her arms were beginning to strain from the excess weight, and even with her gloves she was losing grip. To make matters worse, her monkey friend was starting to claw through her cargo pants.

Greatly annoyed, Kim grunted, "You wanna play that way? Fine, let's play!"

Flicking a switch on the hairdryer with one free hand, Kim triggered the grappling hook's release mechanism, sending herself and the monkey ninja falling from the rafters. The monkey let her go immediately, using its shinobi skills to land safely back on the ground, as Kim expected it to. Now free of her burden, the cheerleader quickly reloaded her spare hook and fired, rather wildly, at another rafter.

A miss! The floor was rising up her! Then the hook dropped, lodged itself on an upper-floor railing, breaking her fall. Kim allowed herself a sigh of genuine relief.

"Close one…"

It was at that moment that the rope keeping Ron from death by anacondas gave way, and the college freshman plunged headfirst into the deep pit beneath him, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Kim acted quickly, releasing her hook once more to drop safely to the ground. Then she grabbed a pole that had once been part of a railing and vaulted across the pit, scooping up her boyfriend as she went. By sheer luck, she made it to the other side, nearly falling backwards into the serpents' waiting jaws. She recovered, and dropped Ron gently on the floor.

"Thanks, KP," said Ron, grinning sheepishly.

Heart still pounding wildly, Kim hugged him, grateful that he was alright.

A tiny squeaking noise from Ron's pants pocket disrupted the couple's little moment. Rufus, Ron's trusted naked mole rat, popped out from its hiding place to see if the coast was clear. It had lodged itself deep in the pocket to prevent from sliding out while Ron was dangling upside-down, and had spent much too long a time too close to its owner's crotch. Obviously traumatized, the rodent made a dramatic display of breathing a sigh of relief, at which Ron laughed.

"I'm glad that's over."

"It isn't just yet," said Kim. "All of this was just a distraction. We still don't know what Monkey Fist is up to."

Monkey Fist, originally the famous archaeologist Lord Montgomery Fiske, was the main man behind Kim and Ron's rather dreadful date. Leader of the monkey ninjas, Fiske was so obsessed with Monkey Kung Fu and Mystical Monkey Power that he modified his own genetics to suit his obsessions, becoming part-man, part-monkey warrior. Kim and Ron were originally sent to track him, but he had lured them into his underground base and eluded their grasp.

"Well, how do we find him? This place is huge!" said Ron, making an exaggerated gesture to show just how 'huge' the lair was.

"Let's split up."

Kim was about to move when Ron protested, "Oh no! We're not splitting up again. That's how we got into this mess in the first place, remember?"

She made a face. They had received some sort of distress call from this vicinity earlier, and upon discovering the lair (guarded, of course, by Monkey Fist's ninja pets), had decided to split up. Kim faced some opposition trying to locate Fist, and eventually found her boyfriend here, on the verge of becoming snake food. In all honesty, she wasn't sure how Ron had gotten into his predicament.

Whether or not Ron had figured this out, he made it a point to talk about it again, if for nothing other than to make himself feel better after a near-death experience. "We decided to search the lair separately, then I went to this dark place and got knocked out by something. Next thing I know, I wake up to a bunch of man-eating anacondas!"

"Alright, alright," said Kim, a little exasperated. She loved the boy, but man could he whine. "We'll search the rest of the place together."

They went up a flight of metal steps and did a sweep of the upper level, keeping close to the granite walls for better security. There were a three hallways that stretched and looped into one another, and several iron doors which required security passes to open. Kim took out her state-of-the-art Kimmunicator, and the image of Wade came alive on the screen.

"What's up, Kim?" asked the child prodigy who had, over the years Kim had known him, grown taller somewhat. A little on the chubby side, he was black with dark curly hair and a brain which made Steve Jobs look like a washed-up college drunk. He played an integral role in Kim's mission successes, and practically managed her entire career.

"Hey, Wade. I've got a door that needs opening." Wade gave a thumbs up and Kim placed the Kimmunicator near a socket in the secured door. A wire shot out from the device, and seconds later the security screen turned green. The door opened with a _clunk!_ There were many more clunking sounds, and Kim realized Wade had taken the liberty of opening all the other doors, which probably all functioned under one main security unit. "You're the best, Wade!"

Inside, the room was dark, carved right out of the stone. It wasn't all that big, and furnished with steel cabinets and tables. The floor was littered with scientific notes, unfinished packs of chips and some lab equipment. No people, no scientists and no sign of life.

"It's a ghost town in here, like they all just…vanished," remarked Ron, shivering. Rufus squeaked in agreement.

They checked the other rooms, and they were mostly the same. There were indications of a struggle, or perhaps the previous occupants of this lair were just really messy. All the notes the duo found were incomplete, encrypted or rendered unreadable. Had Monkey Fist been working on something so top-secret that even the threat of Kim Possible finding them called for a complete evacuation? Or did something far more sinister happen to the scientists and workmen who labored here? Either way, there was no real way of telling what Fist had been planning in this vast, underground installation.

In one of the rooms, there were engineering tools and blueprints Kim (and Ron, obviously) didn't understand. She took snapshots of them and sent the pictures to Wade before continuing her search. After sweeping three more rooms without finding anything noteworthy, they came to a door which, interestingly, hadn't been unsealed by Wade's tampering. It was marked "Testing Room".

Kim shot Ron a look, which he replied to with a shrug. After some of Wade's hacking actions, the door slid open, and Kim and Ron stepped into a room almost as huge as the rest of the lair. The fluorescent ceiling lights were still on, albeit flickering rather annoyingly, and under their glow Kim could see sparking wires and cables sticking out of the walls, and marks on the floor to indicate something huge had been here before. Here and there, small pockets of purple flames flickered, and the teen adventurer watched them with curiosity and interest.

"Kim!" exclaimed Ron. He was pointing at a heap of something lying in the far corner of the room. Kim couldn't make out what it was, so she jogged towards it.

And as she got closer, she stopped dead in her tracks, a sharp sense of terror hitting her like ice water to the face. Ron came up beside her and said something which sounded like a cross between 'yikes' and a dog throwing up.

There, lying facedown on the cold stone floor, clothing torn and burned away, was the bruised, blackened and bloodied body of the late Lord Montgomery Fiske.

"Ron," said Kim, her voice trembling, "we're gonna need some extra help on this one…"


	5. The Consultant

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 5 – The Consultant**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_Phineas & Ferb _and _Lilo & Stitch_. I do not own any of these characters._

For a girl who had been out in deep space without—humanly speaking—adult supervision on several occasions, it was ironic that Lilo Pelekai had never gone overseas in her 12 years of existence before today. Her elder sister, Nani, had made such a fuss about this trip, putting it off twice just to delay her baby girl from leaving. She had been worrying constantly about a myriad of potential problems that could arise ('What if you missed your return flight?' 'You could catch a cold, and not know where the nearest pharmacy is!' 'What if you got kidnapped by loony hobos? That's it, you're staying home!'), worries that Lilo had a hard time allaying.

No sooner had the younger Pelekai boarded the plane that she realized her sister's fears were not completely uncalled for: Stitch, her closest friend and more-than-a-pet alien dog, didn't like flying.

Which was, in itself, an irony. Stitch was a twice-honored interplanetary hero and a decorated Galactic Alliance officer, though he had voluntarily been relieved of duty since obtaining his medals. He had piloted and commandeered various kinds of spacecraft, going at speeds far more daunting than this little Earth aircraft. He had cut rifts in space propelling his ships into hyperspace, performed mind-numbing alley-oops in the vast dark unknown.

But here he was, the legendary hero of the Galactic Alliance, freaking out over a simple airplane ride. And when Stitch freaked out, he made sure other people within a twenty-mile radius knew it.

The takeoff had been plain awful; Stitch had been caught unawares and began screeching in terror as the plane gained momentum and rose into the air. He had clutched his seat so hard that it split in two. Eventually the plane stabilized, and the pilot announced they could take their seatbelts off, but that didn't make things better. Stitch soon transited from disliking flying to enjoying it thoroughly—a little too thoroughly. After several minutes of wrestling with unintelligible screaming and alien swearing, Lilo was chasing the ebullient blue alien across the seats of first class.

Airlines usually (for reasons suddenly very apparent) didn't allow animals onboard their flights unless they came in pet containers and were well-behaved, but Stitch was no animal—he had received special clearance from the government to ride in first class, courtesy of their friend from social services, Cobra Bubbles, who had booked the entire airline for Lilo and Stitch. The plane was completely empty, reserved only for the odd pair.

"Stitch, get back here!" Lilo screamed as she clambered after her blue-furred friend. Stitch was in the process of crawling up the walls of the plane, ogling at the windows and slobbering all over the leather seats. The little alien's claws were also fully extended, spelling trouble and property damage, and he bared his teeth at the clouds, hooting wildly.

"I told you not to drink coffee before the flight!" chided Lilo.

Curling into a ball, Stitch bounced and rolled towards the drink bar at the back of the cabin, smashing a few glasses and completely freaking out the stewardess who had unfortunately been placed on bartender duty. He paused before the counter, staring wide-eyed at the display of fine wines and hard liquor, the evil streak programmed in him sparking out of control at the potential trouble he could cause.

His momentary halt, however, allowed Lilo to catch up with him. Usually, keeping up with Stitch left her panting and sweaty; it was quite a workout. But several years of enduring her best friend's antics—and, at the same time, escaping the consequences of her own—had acclimatized her quite well. This was barely a warm-up.

Grabbing him by his collar, Lilo dragged Stitch away from the bar. It wasn't easy; he clawed and stretched for the colorful bottles of alcohol, but Lilo had also gotten much stronger since her first years with the demon koala-dog from space.

"Come here, you!" she said sternly, finally managing to seat Stitch down. "This is our first time traveling to another country together. It took a lot of time and effort to convince Nani we didn't need chaperons, so I am NOT letting you ruin this trip!"

Stitch's ears drooped. As much as he allowed his evil streak to take over once in a while, he didn't like it when Lilo was unhappy. He surveyed the destruction he had caused and nodded guiltily.

"Good," said Lilo. "Now, be a good boy and I'll get us a cola."

She went up to the empty and wrecked counter and ordered a glass of Coca-cola. A hand from under the counter shot up and placed a half-filled glass on it, then promptly disappeared again. Lilo thanked the distressed stewardess and took the drink to her seat.

Handing the glass to Stitch, she said, "Here you go, Stitch. Go easy on it."

Stitch clapped eagerly and thanked her, downing the fizzy drink in one gulp. Lilo climbed back into her seat. "I'm really excited about this mission. Are you?"

Stitch nodded with enthusiasm. "Eh!"

"Yeah, I can't wait to see Ireland!" As an afterthought, she said, "I wonder what they need us for, though. We already got all the experiments accounted for. You think **Hämsterviel got out again?"**

A white, rodent-like alien, Doctor Jacques von Hämsterviel was the bane of Lilo and Stitch's existence. They had foiled his plans for world-domination countless times over the years, and prevented him from getting control of Stitch's fellow alien experiments, most of which could prove disastrous in the wrong hands. The experiments, 628 in total, had been created by once-evil-genius scientist, Jumba Jookiba, an alien being who had also been responsible for Stitch's creation. Jumba now lived with Lilo and Nani in their Hawaiian island home and often went on advisory missions in space together with his partner, Pleakley.

The entertainment screen in front of Lilo came to life, transiting from static to a video-feed displaying a man with graying hair, a thick moustache and a unibrow. From his uniform, Lilo could tell he was the military type. She had dealt with those before, and couldn't say she enjoyed the encounters. Nonetheless, she smoothed out her floral-print dress, put on her biggest smile and said, "Hi!"

The man on the screen looked rather taken aback. He blinked, twice, as if wondering whether he had gotten the wrong girl. The awkward moment went on for quite a bit; Lilo's cheeks were starting to feel sore from smiling. Even Stitch sat quietly, turning from Lilo to the video screen.

Finally the man coughed, breaking the silence, and said, "Sorry about that. I was…uh…expecting someone a little…"

"Older?" Lilo suggested.

"Fluffier?" Stitch offered.

"Right," said the man, coughing again. "Lilo, is it? I am Major Monogram."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Major!"

"Eh!"

On the screen, Monogram nodded. "Agent Bubbles spoke highly of you, so I'll ignore the fact that you aren't even of legal age for…well, just about anything."

Lilo beamed. Ever since she became an honorary member of the Galactic Alliance and Earth's unofficial expert on aliens, Cobra Bubbles had been referring consultations with all sorts of important people to her. She liked to think of him as her publicist or agent, though more often than not she never got paid.

"Aww, shucks. Cobra tends to over-exaggerate. I'm just doing my part for the universe. Besides, Stitch does most of the heavy lifting."

Stitch grinned widely, displaying his razor-sharp canines for the Major to see. Monogram raised a brow, silently wondering if Bubbles had messed up somehow. Could this little girl really be _the _Lilo Pelekai?

Guess there was only one way to find out.

"Well, Lilo," Monogram began. "Here's my problem. Not too long ago we had a situation at an undisclosed location. Many people lost their lives, and it's not a pretty sight. The source of the destruction is, as of yet, unknown. One of my agents seems to think it was an attack of supernatural origin, but I have a…different theory." He was trying to make things sound simpler for her, not wanting to dwell too much on the blood and death.

"You think it was aliens?"

Monogram nodded. "We've dealt with the extraterrestrial before, though there's never been damage on such a scale. There's never even been _contact _on such a scale."

"Are there any pictures we could look at?" Lilo asked.

The Major shifted uncomfortably. He _had _prepared pictures of the scene, but they were much too graphic for a little girl, no matter how professional or mature Bubbles claimed her to be. He didn't want to traumatize the poor child.

But Lilo insisted, seeing his hesitation, and eventually he gave in. The photographs came up on the screen, replacing Monogram's wizened face. Pictures of razed houses, charred cadavers and dead grass plains flooded Lilo's vision. While the jovial smile she had diligently kept up dimmed, she showed no signs of shock or terror. Monogram, who was still receiving her video feed, was impressed. Even he had trouble digesting the horrors that had taken place at Argon's Temple.

When the last of the pictures disappeared from the screen, Monogram came back on. He was quiet, waiting to observe the young consultant's response. At first, she lowered her head and stroked her chin in thought, and the Major wondered if those pictures had been too much for her. But then, much to his surprise, she raised her head and said, "Mr. Major, I don't think this has anything to do with aliens."

Monogram looked taken aback. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "Surely you don't agree with Fillmore that this has something to do with monsters and magic!"

Lilo scratched her head. The Major had not previously mentioned this Fillmore character. She replied, "I believe in Tiki Magic and the Aloha Spirit. Also in voodoo, ghosts, black holes and subatomic particles. But I didn't say this was caused by any of those, sir."

"Then what _are_ you saying?"

"Just…the pictures; no alien I know of is capable of such destruction, unless they worked in a team. Even then, they'd have to be a pretty big invasion force. If that were so, surely the authorities would have noticed their ships coming in. Besides, if I were an alien invader, I wouldn't invade a small village and then just disappear. I would hit major cities, like New York, or London, or Singapore. Unless…" She paused to think.

"Unless?" pressed Monogram.

"Unless there was something they wanted, something so important that they would need to attack that poor village." She turned to Stitch. "What do you think, Stitch?"

The alien experiment had been fiddling with the tiki necklace attached to his collar. At the mention of his name, he looked up and, with some effort, managed to say, "Stitch think Lilo right. No alien big enough for scary pictures!"

Frustrated by this information, Monogram rubbed his brow till it was bright red.

When he didn't say anything, Lilo added, "Those burn marks don't look like they were made by plasma blasts. Any alien race in this sector advanced enough to attack Earth wouldn't be using fire to fight. Plasma guns are handier and far more effective weapons."

Faced with this final piece of evidence, Monogram conceded, "Well, if what you say is true, then I suppose your services are no longer needed, Miss Pelekai. Would you like me to turn the plane around?"

Lilo shook her head violently. "No! I've been dying to see New York City!" She put on her puppy-dog eyes, her ultimatum reserved usually for Nani. For good measure, Stitch nodded in eager agreement.

Monogram couldn't help but smile at the sight of the adorable pair. "Fine, fine. We can have your full debrief in our New York office, then you can have your vacation. No more than a week, though, you hear?"

"Yes, sir!" shouted Lilo and Stitch in unison.

With that, the screen flickered to black, and Lilo sank back into her seat. She stayed that way for a while, as Stitch nodded off. When she was sure her blue friend was asleep, she allowed the tears to come, and in the silence she prayed for the souls of the men, women and children who died in the village of Argon's Temple.


	6. Some Major Discomfort

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 6 – Some Major Discomfort**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_Phineas & Ferb, Kim Possible _and _Lilo & Stitch_. I do not own any of these characters._

Shortly after terminating his video conference with Lilo, Monogram went to his pantry for a drink. Carl was out running some errands, so he had to make his own coffee, something he soon realized—and hated to admit—he had forgotten to do. So ten minutes of figuring out how to work the coffee machine later, Monogram returned to his desk with a black draught that was much too thick and much too bitter.

Slumping on his office chair, Monogram thought about the consultation he just had. It was perhaps the most surreal conversation he had ever encountered, and that meant a lot coming from a man who spoke to animals.

Could he really take Lilo's words seriously? She was only a little girl, not older than twelve. The confidence she exuded could very well be the same stubborn conviction children displayed when playing make-belief. Surely he owed it to the world not to make a snap decision based on the opinion of someone young enough to be his granddaughter.

But a small part of him, that tinny voice he had taught himself to block out with age, told him that this was his ego speaking, that his pride was clouding his judgment. Truth be told, this wasn't about Lilo at all. Monogram knew better than that, deep down. This was about Fillmore and his confounded conspiracy theories. They had been the bane of the Organization—and Monogram's work life—for the longest time. Millions of dollars worth of funding had gone into Fillmore's ludicrous investigations, simply because the world owed him as much. But the days of Cornelius Fillmore's heroism were long gone, and it was time to move on, damn it.

Now the Captain was obsessed with his so-called magical world, and Monogram was sick of it. He had contacted Lilo to disprove Fillmore's claims, but that hadn't worked out very well. That was why Monogram doubted her words, despite Cobra Bubbles vouching for her.

There was too much at stake here for the Major's petty personal issues to get in the way. Too many dead and, if Fillmore's hypothesis was right, many more at risk. The usual suspects—those with enough firepower to cause such devastation—were out of the picture, and Lilo had discounted aliens. That could only mean one of two things: either a new villain was in town, one that meant serious business, or Fillmore was right all along, which meant the Organization now had to deal with magic and dragons.

"Why can't it be aliens?" Monogram sighed.

A beeping noise sounded from his computer, and he placed his thumb on a scanner pad, turning his com-screen on. The complex logo of Global Justice, a close affiliate of the Organization, dominated the screen and was quickly replaced with the image of a woman with an eye-patch, clothed in a cobalt utilitarian suit. She flipped back her cinnamon-colored hair at the sight of Monogram and sat up ramrod straight. Monogram recognized her instantly.

"Dr. Betty Director, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked politely.

"Good evening, sir," said Director, all business. "I'm afraid we have some disturbing news. I'm sure you are familiar with Kim Possible?"

He was. The teenage cheerleader who moonlighted as an adventurer and hero-for-hire, Kim Possible had been facing down big-time bad guys like Drakken and Duff Killigan since she was in high school. Along with her partner, Ron Stoppable, she had also taken on global-level threats such as the alien princess invader, Warmonga. The world was indebted to her in ways they could only guess at or read about in Kim's blog site.

Kids these days, Monogram mused, thoughts shifting to Lilo. Why couldn't they just have normal childhoods which didn't involve aliens or crazy scientists, where the only bad guy to worry about was the boogeyman lurking in the closet?

"Of course I am," said the Major. Then, out of sincere concern, he asked, "Did something happen to her?"

"Not to her, no," Betty said. "She found…a body. To be precise, the body of Lord Montgomery Fiske."

Monogram blinked. "_The _Montgomery Fiske? The crazy archaeologist who turned himself into a monkey ninja?"

"Yes, sir. Also known as Monkey Fist, Fiske was found dead earlier today at 1600 hours by teen hero, Kim Possible, and her sidekick, Ron Stoppable. It was believed Fiske was working on something big, but evidence found in his lair is heavily encrypted. Also, key elements of his research are missing from his files. While official cause of death is unknown, it was clear he was murdered. I've sent the details to your inbox."

A vein on Monogram's temple throbbed painfully. Fiske was a villain through and through, but he had enough of deaths for a lifetime. This could only spell trouble.

"Sir, what is your cause of action?"

Sighing heavily, Monogram said, "Call Possible in. I want a full debrief by tomorrow. And send some clean-up crews to the site as well. Get rid of the body and see what you can find."

"Roger. Director, out."

The screen blanked out, and for a moment, Monogram considered letting his mind do the same. But he couldn't, and that was the harsh truth. A man in his position couldn't allow his head to be anywhere other than in the game. So, with a heavy heart, Monogram pulled himself to his feet, and made himself another pot of horrible-tasting coffee.


	7. Pieces of the Puzzle, Assemble!

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 7 – Pieces of the Puzzle, Assemble!**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_Phineas & Ferb, Kim Possible, American Dragon: Jake Long, Fillmore _and _Lilo & Stitch_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. _

The black SUV darted through traffic, expertly driven by a man in expensive shades. The car turned a sharp corner and disappeared into a tunnel that hadn't been there six seconds ago. The empty tunnel stretched on for several minutes, fluorescent ceiling lights bouncing off the car's polished shell. Approaching a dead end, the SUV screeched to a halt in the middle of circular platform. With a bump, the platform moved, raising the vehicle up into a vast parking lot.

The car doors open, and for the first time since the journey began, the passengers could look out; the windows of the SUV were blacked out, and a partition in the car prevented them from seeing past the windscreen.

Having dealt directly with Global Justice in her past adventures, Kim knew right away that this was not their base of operations. She and Ron stepped out of their ride and followed the tuxedo-clad driver through a series of metal doors.

After climbing two flights of stairs (Kim had no idea why they didn't invest in elevators), they entered a room furnished with an ovular oak table and comfortable-looking chairs, much like a conference room. Teacups on fancy coasters were arranged neatly before each seat, and a pot of hot coffee sat in the centre of the long table. At one end of the room was a large foldable screen and a shelf full of commemorative plaques. One of them read: 'Long-term Achievement for Global Defense Awarded to Major M. Monogram'.

"Wait here," said the driver, who had not removed his shades the entire time.

Kim looked to Ron, and they both shrugged, choosing adjacent seats furthest from what they presumed was the head of the table. Rufus slipped out of Ron's pocket, munching a cheese-slathered nacho chip, and Ron allowed the critter to sit on his lap.

"Oh man, why did they call us in?" groaned Ron. It was a weekend, and he was missing Saturday Morning Cartoons.

"You know why," said Kim. "Monkey Fist, the whole crime-scene we stepped into. They probably called us in for questioning." She resisted the urge to shiver. The image of Fist's limp body, lying in its own blood, was hard to shake off. It had been haunting her since the mission.

Ron, on the other hand, seemed unaffected. "Still, you'd think Global Justice could wait till Monday. Do they even operate on weekends?"

"Ron, didn't you notice on our way up here? This isn't Global Justice. Not even close."

Ron shrugged. "Well, wherever we are, it sure is fancy."

He picked up a teacup and held it with his pinky up. Kim rolled her eyes, but when he started making loud slurping noises and speaking in a butchered British accent, she couldn't help but giggle.

Footsteps came from the corridor outside, and Ron slapped the teacup back onto its coaster. It cracked, but neither Ron nor Kim noticed. Voices could be heard now, alongside the footfalls. Two men, Kim figured, speaking in hushed but hurried tones, almost as if they were arguing about something they didn't want anyone else to hear. Then a third voice piped in, clear and concise—and female. Kim and Ron recognized it at once: it belonged to Betty Director, international superspy and head of Global Justice, a top-secret intelligence organization with the sole purpose of defending the world from threats of magnitudes too great for ordinary forces to handle.

The door to the conference room swung open, and abruptly the voices went silent. Betty was the first to enter the room, followed closely by a bald man in glasses, and an older, gray-haired man with a thick moustache. From the initials 'MM' emblazoned on the latter's uniform, Kim assumed he was the Major M. Monogram mentioned in the plaque.

Her assumption was confirmed when the older man stuck out his hand, saying, "Kim Possible, an honor. I'm Major Monogram."

Kim stood and shook his hand, and he introduced her to his associates, Captain Cornelius Fillmore and Dr. Betty Director, whom Kim and Ron already knew. They shook her hand, and Ron's as well, but declined to do the same with Rufus. Then they all sat down, and a kid with geeky spectacles skittered into the room, fumbling with a laptop. He managed to turn it on, and set it down at the head of the table, where Monogram was seated.

Then Kim noticed, for the first time, a silver metallic plate that protruded from the edge of the wooden table. Several glowing buttons decorated the otherwise nondescript plate. Monogram tapped one of the buttons, and the holographic display of Wade's face greeted them.

"Wade! Looking good, my hologram-man!" said Ron, waving.

Wade waved back, his hand flickering in the holo-display. "Hey Ron! Not too bad, yourself."

"What are you doing here?" asked Kim.

Before Wade could reply, Captain Fillmore, who was seated across from Ron, held up a hand. "Not yet. We're waiting for one more."

At this, Monogram sighed. It was not a sigh of relief, but rather one of frustration and, Kim sensed, resignation. He said, "Actually, Fillmore, make that three more."

They waited a minute or so before the three awaited guests arrived. First through the door was an Asian boy with black, spiky hair, in a red jacket and shredded jeans. He kept his dark eyes on the floor and shuffled towards the seat furthest from Kim and Ron, right next to Monogram. Next came a little girl in a tropical Hawaiian dress, with exotic features and long black hair. She was accompanied by a blue creature that looked like a cross between a dog and a mutant koala. In fact, it looked like nothing Kim had ever seen before. Markings of dark navy ran along its back as it reared up on all its hind legs, flexing its paws and staring out curiously at the strangers in the room with its big, buggy eyes.

"What _is _that thing?" Ron hissed in her ear.

She shrugged as the three newcomers settled in. They must have seemed like an oddly mismatched group of individuals: two college students in cargo pants, a Chinese teenager with a dress sense inspired by the Backstreet Boys, a Hawaiian child and her walking alien teddy bear, a holographic head, a nerd in a lab coat, two military veterans and a superspy with one bad eye.

Everyone who had to be there had arrived, and Monogram signaled for Fillmore to continue. Kim watched the Major carefully; his actions appeared forced, and when Fillmore spoke, Monogram listened begrudgingly. She remembered the muffled argument they had heard in the hallway and wondered what it could have been about.

Her drifting thoughts refocused; Fillmore had begun to speak, "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Captain Cornelius Fillmore of the Organization. My associates here are Major Monogram and Dr. Betty Director of Global Justice." He paused for a moment, presumably to take questions, but there were none.

"Right, I believe a round of introductions is in order. With us today are Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, adventurers of world-renown. The kid with too much hair gel is Jake Long, also known as the American Dragon. And the little girl and her pet, I assume, is the famous duo, Lilo and Stitch, Earth's foremost authority on alien life forms. Joining us via hologram is Wade Load, Kim and Ron's technical handler. Our aide for today will be Carl." He gestured to the redhead kid, who smiled awkwardly. Carl went on to tamper with his laptop, and several pictures appeared on the foldable screen, to which all eyes were now directed.

A funny feeling bubbled in the pit of Kim's stomach. There was so much destruction in those pictures, immense and widespread. There was fire as well, the same unique purple flames Kim had seen burning in parts of Fist's lab. But nothing could compare to the death, gory and gruesome death, too much of it to bear. It took some effort to not look away.

The others in the room seemed equally as uncomfortable. She glanced at Ron, who was having no trouble hiding his disgust. At one point he shielded his eyes, and she wished she had his strength, the strength to admit to weakness. It was one of the things she loved about him.

"Three days ago, a small village in Northern Ireland was razed to ashes," Fillmore explained, as more gruesome pictures filled the screen. "The village has no name, but is situated around a locally-known landmark, the Temple of Argon. According to legend, the temple was built as a memorial and tomb to the ancient warrior, Argon the Ageless. Argon was a renowned barbarian fighter, whose strength and courage made him nearly invincible in battle. But the truth behind Argon's prowess lies in his trusted weapon, an enchanted blade with limitless power."

Now a cave drawing of a big sword surrounded by lightning came up, followed by other depictions of the same weapon in various ancient art forms: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek vase paintings and brightly-painted Minoan frescos. Then there was an empty tomb, its lid pried blown to chunks of stone and rubble.

Fillmore said, "Upon investigating the temple, Organization agents discovered that Argon's tomb was empty. Both the body and the sword, said to have been buried with its wielder, were gone. Any evidence we could find was burned away, except for strange purple flames all around the site, almost impossible to extinguish."

A different set of images replaced the first, and these ones Kim found familiar. It didn't make them any easier to digest though. She watched as Monkey Fist's lifeless form panned in and out of view, in various angles and degrees of zoom. Three bloody marks ran diagonally across his chest, exposing more of the deceased villain than Kim ever needed to see. Dead eyes stared out at the world through a camera lens, eyes that belonged to a man driven mad by his own desires for power and recognition, a man for whom Kim found herself, to her surprise, mourning.

"Two days later, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable infiltrated the lair of Lord Montgomery Fiske, also known as the villain, Monkey Fist. Fist was obsessed with so-called 'Monkey Magic', and dedicated his life to harnessing power he did not fully understand. Besides genetically enhancing himself, Fist also dabbled in the dark arts." Saying this, Fillmore shot a look at Monogram, who pretended he hadn't noticed. The others allowed the exchange to slide. "He was found dead by Possible and Stoppable in his own lab, where, again, the purple flames were found. More than just a coincidence, if you ask me."

"Monkey Magic?" said Lilo excitedly. "So cool."

"That's a pretty big lair, even for a lord. Do we know what Fist was up to?" asked Major Monogram, leaning back against his chair and stroking his moustache.

"Whatever it was, Fist was working on something big. Encrypted blueprints found in his labs were almost impossible to decipher, which is why I brought it Wade Load, Kim's tech handler. Also on the FBI's blacklist for juvenile hackers, but that's beside the point."

Way to go, Wade, thought Kim, finally realizing why her dear friend was present at this meeting—well, his head was, at least. Wade seldom left his room, having completed his post-preschool education entirely online. After getting his second degree, he made some extra pocket money creating complex software for various government agencies, most of which didn't officially exist. The Organization was, Kim guessed, probably part of Wade's clientele. What he did for them, though, she found she didn't really want to know.

"Hey guys," said Wade, his hand sliding momentarily into the holo-display. "I've been studying the blueprints Kim sent me, and I have to say, they're pretty darn complex. So I asked around in cyberspace for some extra information, and guess what? Monkey Fist was building a Dimensional Rift Inducer, a theoretical device that is capable of opening portals into parallel worlds."

"Portals," someone said. Kim turned and saw it was the Chinese boy. Jake Long, was it? He had his arms folded, legs on the table. "You said this monkey dude mixed with dark magic? He was probably trying to summon something. Based on his whacked obsessions, probably a Monkey Daemon."

Monogram coughed loudly. "Dark _arts_. We never said 'magic'."

"Potato, po-ta-to, gramps," Jake snorted.

The older man let the remark slide, gesturing for Wade to continue.

"Well, moving on," said Wade. "After some snooping, I found out that Fist didn't actually come up with the concept. The blueprints were stolen from an R&D facility of a mega conglomerate! Fletcher & Flynn Inventions Inc."

"Fletcher & Flynn?" said Monogram. "We've contracted them for a series of projects in the past. If something had been stolen from them, why haven't we gotten wind of it?"

"The idea for the Rift Inducer was iced," said Wade. "The project was scrapped and the blueprints went into storage. Knowing Monkey Fist, he probably stole it without leaving much evidence behind. In fact, they just found out their vault was broken into, even though Fist must have had the blueprints for weeks."

"Gotta hand it to him," Ron piped in. "Guy's a ninja master. Well, used to be, anyway."

"So the device doesn't work?" asked Monogram.

"Fletcher & Flynn couldn't get past pre-dev. We don't know how much Monkey Fist managed to accomplish," said Fillmore. "For all we know, he could've successfully summoned the Monkey Daemon and caused the destruction of Argon's town in order to obtain the sword."

"That still doesn't explain his death," Jake pointed out.

"Or the fact that the device was stolen from his lab," Kim added. She remembered the marks on the ground and the wires in the walls, indicating the Inducer had been up and, very likely, operational before Fist's death.

Lilo raised her hand like a schoolgirl wanting to answer a question posed by the teacher, till she got everyone's attention. "Maybe the monkey spirit took the dimensional machine because it didn't want to get sucked back to wherever it came from. Then it killed Fist and took the sword with it."

They stared at her, unblinking, and Lilo leaned back in her chair victoriously.

"We ran an autopsy of Fist's body," said Betty Director, who hadn't spoken up to that point. "He had been dead less than a day. Fillmore and Lilo's theories could both be accurate."

They spent the next hour discussing and exchanging theories, trying to piece together what had happened in Monkey Fist's lair, and how it was connected to the catastrophe of Argon's Temple. Had Fist truly succeeded in summoning a demon primate? If so, how much damage could it cause, and why hadn't anyone seen one running around? Surely a monster monkey rampaging through town with a Dimensional Rift Inducer was hard to miss, even in New York City.

Throughout the remainder of the meeting, Jake hardly spoke, except to answer queries about Monkey Daemons, its appearance and capabilities. Instead, the boy kept his eyes glued on Fillmore, and his gaze wasn't friendly, Kim noted. If Fillmore noticed the hostility in Jake's eyes, he showed no sign.

Eventually it was decided that they paid Fletcher & Flynn a visit. Fillmore said, "This could get dangerous, and most of you are still kids in the eyes of the law. Needless to say, we could really use your individual expertise, but if you want out, you are free to go." He directed his words and gaze towards Ron, Kim, Jake and Lilo.

None of them moved. Monogram rubbed his temple hard, and Kim cringed at the thought of how much trouble this could mean for him if one of them got hurt.


	8. Dungeons, Dragons & Skyscrapers

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 8 – Dungeons, Dragons and Skyscrapers**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Fillmore _and _Recess_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. _

The Detweiler building could hardly be considered one of the tallest buildings in New York City. In fact, it paled in stark comparison to the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building. Still, it was a pretty awesome sight to behold. Owned by and named after billionaire business tycoon, T.J. Detweiler, the post-modern structure boasted sixty-seven floors, and was fortified with the most advanced security system. White-collared workers wandered through the carpeted hallways each day, knocking on doors and making coffee for cutthroat CEOs who didn't even know their underlings' first names.

For Jake, the best thing about the Detweiler building was the view. From his perch on the rooftop, he could see a great deal of the city, glimpsing Madison Square Garden in the distance, several museums, and the back alleys of less-traveled streets. Places where magical creatures tended to lurk, inadvertently causing trouble sooner or later.

The roof itself was flat and spacious, home to a small sky garden that wasn't as impressive as it sounded. Anyone fancying a picnic could lie in the carpet grass and watch the summer clouds breeze past. That is, if they could get past the security scanners in the doors, roof access included. Jake used to wonder why Detweiler didn't install a pool up here; then he realized business folk rarely had time to relax, and if they did, they didn't want to do it anywhere near their workplace.

Standing on a high ledge of the roof, the American Dragon took in the sights and sounds of the city, his enhanced senses picking up even the faintest whispers on the streets, the slightest odors. He dismissed most of the mundane—the old lady haggling at the butcher's; the scent of freshly-baked croissants at the local bakery; the crude exchanges between aloof teenagers—filtering for any trace of magical comings and goings.

The roof access door opened with a muffled beep. Jake knew before turning around that Fillmore had somehow managed to breach the building's security. He executed a flawless back-flip off the ledge and landed gracefully in front of the Captain.

If Fillmore saw the anger in Jake's eyes, it didn't bother him.

"Didn't catch you after the briefing," said Fillmore coolly. "How long have you been up here?"

"About two hours." The meeting had ended less than three hours ago. "Two things. First, I said no teams. Who were those clowns?"

"You may not like them, but they're more involved in this than you," Fillmore replied. "And nobody said they were part of your team. They just…happened to come together, that's all."

"Fine. Second, why didn't you tell them about the claw?" Jake asked, the hostility in his voice barely contained.

"They didn't need to know," Fillmore replied.

"You've got them chasing the wrong magical creature! We both know Monkey Fist didn't manage to summon a Monkey Daemon!"

"Just like we know for certain, without a doubt, that a dragon is involved in all this?"

Jake looked taken aback. "But…the claw, you said…"

"Look," said Fillmore, reaching into his pockets, "I haven't been totally honest with you."

"You don't say," Jake muttered.

Fillmore tossed something to the boy, who caught it effortlessly. It was the claw, corrupted and foul and cracked in several places. It was the first time Jake was holding it up this close, and he didn't like what he saw one bit.

He squeezed hard on the relic, and it crumbled to dust.

"This is a fake…" Jake looked up to the Captain in bemusement, wordlessly demanding an explanation.

"It wasn't a dragon that destroyed Argon's Temple," said Fillmore. "At least, we don't know for sure if it was or not."

"The purple flames…" Even as he said it, Jake knew that the strange-colored fire could be produced by several other creatures possessed of dark energies, Monkey Daemon included.

"I had to find a way to pull you in," said Fillmore. His voice sounded suddenly sad and heavy, as if a great weight hung on the words he was about to say. "I need you to find the dragon, in order to save her."

"Who?"

"Her name is Ingrid. Ingrid Third. She was my partner, my best friend since Middle School. We were working a dead-end case for the Organization, involving the magical world. Monogram ordered us to pull back, saying there was nothing more to it than rumors and legends. But Ingrid felt otherwise. She had a hunch, and we followed it down into the sewers. Then we found it…"

Fillmore cast his eyes to the ground, and Jake sensed a darkness hanging over them. He waited till the Captain continued, "There was an underground temple, and there was a dragon there, though he didn't look entirely like a dragon. He had claws just like the fake I made, but he was small. Powerful though. There were other creatures there, too. We fought, and I blacked out. When I awoke, I was lying in a ditch, and Ingrid was gone." He swallowed hard.

"You didn't find the temple again?"

Fillmore shook his head. "Never again. It disappeared. The temple, the dragon, my partner—I never saw any of them again."

There were many questions on Jake's mind, and he wanted them all answered. The biggest one was directed inward—could Fillmore be trusted? The Captain was shadier than a shade demon, but the terrible sadness on his face seemed genuine enough. That kind of emotion was hard to fake, but Jake had met his fair share of shady and deceptive characters in his career as New York's magical protector. So far, Fillmore could contend with the best of them.

Jake settled for a less-burning question. "Those creatures, what did they look like?"

Fillmore stroked his chin in thought. "Some had slimy skin and pointy ears. Big, but not giants. They were carrying swords and wearing poorly-made armor."

Jake nodded. Goblins. Greedy little barbarians, they were easy to bribe, and weak enough to be subdued by most magical beings higher up the hierarchy.

"There were some that looked like ghosts, with red eyes and bodies like smoke. They were hard to hit, but disappeared when we shone our torches at them."

"Shade demons," said Jake, fists clenching. He was shivering now. His next question had been answered—shade demons were lesser demons created to serve one being only: the bane of the magical world, the creature legend dared not speak of. "The Dark Dragon is back."

The Dark Dragon. A harbinger of destruction, nobody knew who he really was, or how he came into being. Even amongst the dragons, he was simply a myth, an old wives' tale to scare children out of going out alone at night. Only two dragons had ever faced him alone and lived. Jake was one of them. Lao Shi, Jake's maternal grandfather, was the other.

Five years ago, the Dark Dragon had attempted to gain control of the Dragon Council by having them brainwashed in Hong Kong. His plan had been foiled, which resulted in a massive attack on the Council instead. With the help of his friends, Jake had managed to seal the Dark Dragon in another dimension for what he thought would be a thousand years. Time, apparently, was not as reliable as he thought.

"He's not back completely, I think," said Fillmore. "He was like those shade demons, all smoke and claws. Like he wasn't fully formed."

Jake considered this, wondering what it could mean. It was possible that the Dark Dragon, with all his power and resources, had found some means to escape his prison realm. That would require a massive amount of energy though, even for a master of dark magic. Perhaps the Dragon did escape, at a terrible cost, and was reduced to living in hiding while his shade demons nursed him back to full strength.

If Fillmore was telling the truth—and how could he make up so much detail?—then the world was in great peril. Diminished power or not, the Dark Dragon was cunning and unwavering in his desires to rule the magical world. If and when he eventually accomplished this goal, he would set his sights on the mundane realm, then nothing would stand in his way.

A thought came to Jake then, and he said, "What if the Dark Dragon needed Argon's sword to return to full power?"

"You think he was working with Fist to get the sword?"

Jake nodded. "It's not impossible. Fist is obsessed with monkey magic. The Dark Dragon gives him knowledge of the dark arts, tells him 'bout the Monkey Daemon in exchange for a favor. The Monkey Daemon destroys the village, and Fist realizes the true value of the sword. He tries to take it, and the Dark Dragon kills him."

"A sound theory," said Fillmore. "But like I said, there's a possibility the Dark Dragon was never involved in all this. However, while I do want to find out who caused the deaths of the villagers at Argon's Temple, I still need your help to find Ingrid."

Shaking his head, Jake said, "I know the Dark Dragon. There's a good chance you won't find your lady friend."

"I can't accept that," Fillmore replied firmly. "She… We were gonna to get married…"

For a split second, a hint of sorrow came over Fillmore's face, but the moment passed, and he was his calculated self again. "Now you know my true motives, Jake. So I'll ask you again: are you willing to help us solve this? All of it?"

Instincts screaming, Jake stared hard at the man before him. Fillmore looked so certain, so smug. Behind his glasses, his eyes spoke of an intellect and watchfulness that superseded that of many villains Jake had faced. And Jake had faced a multitude of bad guys in the short span of his life. Fillmore was a man with an agenda, one that the Organization did not know about. Jake knew, then, that there was no outsmarting Fillmore, and that trusting the Captain would be dangerous, if not a mistake.

"I'm the American Dragon. If any of this has anything to do with the magical world, then I'm in. I'll even help you find your gal pal. But I'm warning you." Jake took a step towards Fillmore, and allowed the dragon's eyes to surface. "If you're playing me for a sucker…" The sentence was punctuated by the unsheathing of Jake's claws, wickedly curved and razor sharp.

Fillmore appeared neither intimidated nor fazed. Instead, he extended a hand. Warily, hesitantly, Jake accepted it.


	9. Devils Love Joyrides

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 9 – Devils Love Joyrides **

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Kim Possible, Fillmore _and _Lilo & Stitch_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

The next morning, a black limousine pulled up right outside Kim's dorm house at Middleton Community College, attracting a small crowd of students making 'oo'-ing and 'ah'-ing noises, and the occasional 'Yo, that's one sick ride!' A loudhailer blared, and the crowd parted, allowing Ron to come through.

"Uh, boo-ya! That's right, ladies and gents," announced Ron through the loudhailer. "My limousine. Back it up, don't scratch the paint!"

Rufus, riding in his pocket, squealed in delight as Ron approached the limo. But instead of opening the car doors, he spun on his heel and walked towards Kim's dorm. She emerged from the door just as he was about to knock, dressed in a green crop top and denim jeans.

"Hello, my lady," Ron said with a dramatic bow.

Tiresomely, Kim rolled her eyes. She had spent the entire night studying for an upcoming exam, and was not in the mood for Ron's antics, no matter how cute her boyfriend was.

"C'mon, let's go."

She grabbed his hand, and together they disappeared inside the limousine, the throng of college undergrads gawking at them.

Kim spent a few minutes briefing Ron about Fletcher & Flynn Inventions Inc. The day before, she had enlisted Wade's help in getting some additional information about the company, and the tech genius had emerged from cyberspace in tears and with absolutely nothing. Their security was foolproof—not even the kid who spent Friday nights hacking into the Pentagon's intranet could find a backdoor. Kim slept on Ron's shoulder through most of the ride, with his hand around her, leaving him rather stuck—and bored. He toyed around with the mini-fridge and television for a while, then moved on the built-in gaming system. When he realized he couldn't play with one hand, though, he decided it best to just kick back and die of boredom.

To think that being a limousine could be so…uninteresting.

Entering the city, the car pulled up in front of the Grand Tipton Hotel, and through the one-way windows Ron could see Lilo and her pet alien emerge from the hotel's double glass doors. She chatted with the concierge, and the prude-looking man beamed uncharacteristically. Whatever she had said, it must have been pleasant and, Ron guessed, quite flattering. The concierge was blushing now, struggling to keep his broad smile in check.

Kim awoke just as Lilo entered the spacious limo. She sat opposite the couple, her blue companion rubbing its paws together gleefully as they admired the inside of their extravagant ride.

"Hey guys," Lilo greeted them. Her pet, Stitch, waved.

Ron waved and said hi, and Kim did the same, albeit groggily. They talked briefly about the weather, asked Lilo where she was from, were corrected on certain misconceptions about Hawaii (Ron never realized it was a protected haven for extraterrestrial life forms), and learned about Stitch's origins as an evil genetic experiment that was now an intergalactic hero. Stitch interjected often in an alien language that only Lilo seemed to understand, and was introduced to Rufus. Ron thought the pair hit if off pretty well. In no time, Rufus was offering some leftover nachos to Stitch, who seemed to enjoy expired cheese as much as the naked mole rat.

"So what made you sign up for this?" Kim asked.

"I was called in to be the Major's consultant," Lilo replied. "He thought we were fighting aliens."

"Of course," said Kim. "But, I mean, why are you still here? You've done your job. You don't have to stay for the rest of whatever this is."

Lilo looked at Stitch, and both of them turned to Kim, incredulous looks on their faces. "Are you kidding?!" said Lilo. "If we leave now, we'll be sent back home! And we haven't even gone to Disneyland yet!"

"Disneyland!" exclaimed Ron. "We should totally go together after all this is over."

As the limo weaved through traffic at a comfortable pace, Ron, Kim and Lilo made fast friends, exchanging anecdotes about their own adventures and misadventures, while Stitch and Rufus raided the min-fridge. When they ran out of stories, they tried out some games, Ron getting his butt kicked by Lilo on _Halo 3_. Occasionally they chatted up the chauffer, but he didn't say much, which was for the better. He had a voice like nails against a cheese grater, and made Ron a little jittery. It was a good thing they were separated by a partition in the center of the car.

"Hey, isn't that dragon kid joining us?" Ron said, a half-hour into the journey.

"He'll be a-meetin' us there," the driver replied. Ron couldn't quite place the accent. It sounded like every European accent that existed scrunched up together, then fed into a paper shredder.

"It's kind of strange that Director or Fillmore isn't with us," Kim commented.

"They be busy, lass."

Kim shrugged it off. They ran out of things to do, and she went back to sleep on Ron's shoulder. An awkward moment passed between Ron and Lilo, and he tried again to spark a new conversation.

"So… Stitch's an alien experiment, huh?"

Lilo nodded, proudly. "Experiment No. 626. He can be a handful at times, especially when he goes bad. But that almost never happens, right Stitch?"

The blue alien wasn't paying attention. Instead, it was dousing itself in caffeine from the iced cappuccino dispenser.

"Oh boy…" muttered Lilo.

Ron laughed. "Yeah, coffee. I never let Rufus have coffee, cuz, you know, it could kill him."

"Putting Stitch on coffee could kill us all," Lilo said. Ron couldn't tell whether she was joking or not.

"So, uh, how'd you guys meet? I mean, it's not like you went to space or anything, right?"

"Nope," Lilo replied. "Stitch was supposed to be exiled by the Galactic Alliance, but he got away and crashed on Earth. They sent some aliens after him, but most of them are our friends now. Stitch is indestructible, anyway, so it wasn't much of a problem."

"Impressive," said Ron, and he meant it.

The limo hit a bump, rousing Kim. "Where are we going?" she asked after a hearty yawn. They had been driving for about an hour and a half, since the campus. They should have made it to Fletcher & Flynn by now.

Looking out the windows, Ron realized they were now traveling through the backstreets of the city. Cramped alleyways and battered shop houses loomed into view. They drifted past several flickering street lamps and horrid-smelling drain covers as the sky began to dim.

"Hey, driver-guy," Ron said, realizing he didn't know their chauffer's name. "Where are we, huh?"

The car stopped, abruptly, and Ron became suddenly very aware of the air-conditioning. It was deafening, like a cross between a strong gale and a serpent's hiss. It was also really, really cold.

Ron gulped loudly, knowing something was very wrong. He could feel Kim tensing beside him. Lilo had moved herself to the corner of her seat, close to the door, Stitch hovering protectively close by. She tried the handle—locked. No surprise there.

A whirring sound: the top-half of the partition slide aside, revealing more of the enigmatic, tuxedo-clad driver.

"Don't ye bother, lass," the driver grunted. He turned his head then, revealing a slimy, elongated face the color of wet moss, and eyes the size of golf balls. The creature smiled, flashing a menacing set of yellowish fangs which drew a yelp from the limousine's passengers. "There be no way outta here."

Before anyone could react, the roof above them was torn open, and clawed hands reached down towards the driver's seat, dragging the monstrous chauffer out by the collar.

"I beg to differ!" a familiar voice growled.

Both the driver and its abductor disappeared from sight, leaving everyone a tad confused. Kim took the momentary distraction to pull out her laser lipstick, cutting a hole in the car door.

"Let's go!" she cried, pulling Ron, frozen by the spectacle, out with her onto the street. Lilo and Stitch clambered through right behind them.

Outside, the roads and streets were quiet. The apartment windows were either boarded up or smashed to bits; strewn rubbish flitted in the wind like wandering ghosts, haunting the empty alleyways and sidewalks. It was as if this entire city block had decided to vacate the area and seal it off, leaving it completely deserted—except for the pair of winged creatures battling in midair.

"Is that…a dragon?" Kim asked.

"Nah," said Ron. Then he looked closer at the scarlet creature: it had draconic wings and a draconic tail, ears like an elf's and a face like that of a Velociraptor. So yes, it had to be a dragon. What else could it be. "Oh wait, you mean the red one. Yeah, that's a dragon."

"Maka maka!" Stitch grunted.

Ron turned at the sound and saw shadows shifting in the alleys as the broken street lamps went completely black. Then the sky became suddenly and abruptly overcast, and the shadows came to life, staring at the four companions with gleaming red eyes.

"This does not look good," Ron commented, and the others silently agreed.

"Should have worn my mission outfit," said Kim, getting into a fighting stance.

The shadow things were moving now, closing in on the group with deliberate slowness, testing their prey. One got too close, and Kim kicked out hard at it, only to have her foot slip right through its formless body.

"What the heck?" she muttered, then tried again. Nothing. The creature hardly seemed fazed.

Plunging straight into the fight, Stitch was now clawing at the shadows to little avail. Lilo had found a broken broomstick and was now swinging it wildly at nothing. There was nothing they could do to touch—let alone hurt—the shadow monsters. The creatures were closing in on them now, forcing them into back to back in a tight huddle. Their very presence seemed to drain away the light. Red eyes gleaming, several of the creatures attacked at once, pouncing on the cornered kids.

"Duck and cover!" Ron shouted, and they did, though it did little to mitigate the damage. The shadows clawed at them, leaving deep scratches across their arms and backs. "Ow! No fair! They can—ow!—hit us but we can't hit them!"

"Speaking the obvious, Ron!" Kim snapped.

This was it, thought Ron. Scratched to death by strange shadow ghouls in the middle of an abandoned city block. Despite all his faith in her, he had always known going with Kim on missions was dangerous. But this was not how he pictured they would go out. Dropped in a vat of molten lava, maybe. Or tickle-tortured by Drakken till he laughed his guts out. But this? This was unceremonious, inglorious and completely unprecedented. It was _not _going on his obituary. Why couldn't he be eaten by a dragon instead?

As he struggled futilely against the shadow monsters, a blur of crimson swooped past the corner of his eye. He barely had time to turn and squint when a jet of flame pierced the pair of monsters atop him, leaving them screeching in pain. Instincts kicking in, Ron leaped to his feet and spun about, spotting Kim, who had maneuvered herself in front of a badly-vandalized cul-de-sac. He made towards her, but his path was now blocked by several other shadow monsters.

Then the dragon was upon them like a blood-red angel of fury, muzzle dripping with fearsome flames. The monsters hissed and snarled in defiance, but the dragon unleashed a fiery roar. Instantly they shied away from the magnificent beast, and Ron began to realize it wasn't the flames they were afraid of—it was the light.

The dragon launched another ball of fire in Kim's direction, scattering the monsters which had her surrounded. Then it fired two more shots the opposite way, towards a boarded-up hardware store nearby where Lilo and Stitch had managed to cut a path through. Again, the monsters pulled back, wary of the firelight.

"They're shade demons," the dragon said suddenly. Ron jumped, not because it spoke—he somehow expected that—but because it did so with an amplified, rumbling version of Jake Long's voice. "Seems you can't hurt them physically, but they're repelled by light."

"Hey, Mr. Dragon," said Ron. "Did you eat that Asian kid or something? Cause you sound a lot like—"

"Focus, Stoppable!" the dragon bellowed, its voice like a thunderclap. "Find some light!"

"Right!" He didn't have to be told twice, especially not by a ferocious dragon. Cutting through the dazed shade demons, he bolted towards the hardware store, catching up with Lilo and Stitch. "Shade demons! Scared of light!"

Stitch nodded and head-butted the wooden boards nailed against the store's windows. They splintered apart like wet paper, and the little alien disappeared inside, reemerging seconds later with several different kinds of torches, each of them turned on and flashing. At the sight of the lights, several of the shade demons beat a hasty retreat, but several more got caught in the blinding rays and disintegrated with a bloodcurdling howl. The sound made Ron want to weep and retch.

"Get one to Kim!" he said to Stitch; the little alien dropped the torches, leaving a single heavy-duty flashlight in his paw. He reared back, then threw the flashlight like one would a javelin. It soared through the air, and as Ron shouted Kim's name, the ex-cheerleader jumped and caught it, vanquishing her attackers in one fell swoop.

No time to hesitate. Ron swept up two of Stitch's torches and ran into the thick of the battle. The demons were focusing their attention on the dragon now, forming a tight circle around it. The dragon responded with small bursts of flames, but the shade demons didn't seem to mind sacrificing a few of their brethren to land a strike or two. With his best war cry, Ron charged in, torches ablaze, swinging them like lightsabers—they cut through the shade demons like leaves.

More shade demons faded into oblivion as Lilo, Stitch and Kim joined the fight. Lilo brandished an industrial torch, while Stitch juggled four lights at once. Ron tried to ignore the fact that the alien now had four hands instead of the usual two, and concentrate on the battle before him. It seemed their presence had boosted the dragon's spirit; the beast now fought with a renewed gusto that was awe-inspiring, even for a mythical creature of such magnificence.

In moments, the fight was done, and the surviving shade demons retreated into the crevices from which they had crawled. As the last of the monsters faded away, the sky cleared, and the late-morning sun beamed down upon the city once again. It was as glorious a sight as Ron had ever seen, and that was a lot coming from Kim Possible's partner and boyfriend.

"They must have used some kinda spell to block out the sun," said the dragon. A halo of flames engulfed it, and when it dissipated, Jake Long appeared where the winged beast once stood. Ron stared, mind boggled, mouth agape.

"Ron, please tell me you knew all along," said Kim, catching his expression.

"I was wondering why they called you the American Dragon," said Lilo.

Ron continued to stare.

Jake ignored them. "This part of town's run by magical creatures. It comes alive at night, but in the day it seems abandon, and is almost impossible to get to without some kinda pathfinder spell." As an afterthought, he added, "You guys should come visit some time. They throw mean parties."

"We'd like that," said Lilo, smiling broadly.

"What was that thing you fought?" Kim asked, and Ron realized she was referring to the demon chauffer who had brought them here.

"A vile creature called a felwing. No worries, I took care of it," Jake explained. "He won't be bothering us no more."

"I guess that means we've lost our driver," said Lilo. "How're we going to get to Fletcher & Flynn's now?"

"The limo's still working fine. I can drive us," Kim volunteered. "C'mon."

Jake nodded. "Grab those lights, too. I've gotta feeling we'll be needing them sooner or later."


	10. Take a Look through My Eyes

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 10 – Take a Look through My Eyes **

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

Things seemed to going good, at first. Yet as the situation unfolded, it became clear that it didn't matter how anything starts—it could get pretty ugly pretty quick.

From a crack in the wooden boards, the goblin sentry watched as the dragon and felwing darted through the sky in a fascinating dance. They clawed and lashed at each other, seemingly even in strength and skill. But eventually it was the dragon that seized the upper hand, finishing off the dreadful felwing with a terrible blast of fire.

Not pausing to hesitate or relish in its victory, the dragon veered downwards like an arrow to aid its friends, now under attack by the shade demons. Ultimately, the tide of battle turned as the misshapen blue gremlin armed its comrades with torches from Bobby's One-stop Hardware Store. That was that. The shade demons stood no chance against their ancient enemy—the light.

The goblin couldn't help but smirk as the scuffle ended. He didn't like shade demons one bit. They were creepy, and hardly made for good company. They way they stared at you with those soulless red eyes was unnerving, even for a demon. And don't even get him started on the whole intangibility thing. Nope, the goblin preferred demons he could actually punch, or stab, or skewer. Or eat.

Still, as much as he was glad to be rid of those cretins, the goblin feared, rightfully so, that the Boss was not going to like this.

Backing away from his peephole, the goblin retreated further into his hideout. It was a one-room apartment, shrouded in shadows, and lightly furnished with half a sofa, a broken ceiling fan and an ornate table laden with rotten meat, a dusty crystal ball and all manner of junk food.

The goblin walked to the table and picked up the crystal ball, uncertain of what to do with it. It was an unsettling thing to behold, an orb filled with shifting, ominous clouds. Eventually he decided to give it a good shake, and the clouds parted; the orb went black.

"What is it?" came a deep, soul-rumbling voice, eerily calm.

"Hey, Boss," the goblin said hesitantly. "The, uh, shade demons…didn't do so well."

"What are you saying?"

"They failed, sir," the goblin tried to explain. "The humans managed to defeat them."

"How?"

The goblin gulped nervously. The deadpan reverberated across time and space, through the crystal ball and shook the foundations of the apartment. There was a darkness to it that sent quivers down the goblin's crooked spine.

"The dragon was with them, uh, sir."

There was silence, which stretched into awkwardness. Then the crystal ball grew hot, and the goblin dropped it. The black clouds within seared a bright red, and a loud roar emanated from the magical orb. Screaming, the goblin ducked under the table as the dilapidated apartment shook, bits of junk food and ceiling falling all around him.

Then the roar ceased, as surely and suddenly as it had started, and the goblin became vaguely aware of a dark figure standing in the middle of the room, only three feet from his hiding place. Before the goblin could react, a hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of his slimy skin, dragging him from under the table. The goblin's hazy eyes met a sinister pair glistening with bright purple flames, and his heart palpitated insanely. Fear gripped him tighter than the hand now around his neck.

"It was your job to keep the dragon away."

The goblin struggled to speak. "I tried… But bringing them here wasn't exactly…the best way to do that."

"You doubt my wisdom?" asked the Boss, and the goblin realized, too late, his fatal mistake. "Only here could the shade demons have mustered the energy for an eclipsing spell. Only here could they have the extra strength necessary to strike at their enemies. You know nothing."

"Boss, I didn't mean—"

Too late.

As the goblin burned to his slow, agonizing death, he lamented the fact that he had not finished his rotten steak dinner, and that Josie the troll would probably eat it instead. He didn't like that; he never liked sharing his food. And he never liked Josie. What kind of name was that, anyway? It was meaningless, so very human. Josie was a stupid name, a tad stupider than the goblin's name…

The purple flames ate away at him, and the goblin saw only darkness.


	11. What Are We Gonna Do Today? (Part 1)

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 11 – What Are We Gonna Do Today?**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Kim Possible, Fillmore, _and _Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

As Kim pulled up in front of the Fletcher & Flynn Facilities, Captain Fillmore and Betty Director were waiting for them at the entrance of the building, which was in fact three separate buildings conglomerated together. If Kim hadn't known any better, she would have thought the two war veterans strangers. They kept a respectable distance from one another, avoiding eye contact altogether. Yet there was no awkward tension between them. Like a pair of well-trained bodyguards, they simply stood there, cool and watchful. Even in civilian clothes, they appeared deadly; Kim was certain that the description wasn't an exaggeration. Of course, it did help that Director wore an eye patch, and Fillmore had on a pair of expensive-looking shades.

Kim got out of the limousine, not really caring where she parked. With Lilo, Stitch, Jake and Ron, she ascended the polished marble steps that led to the glass double-doors of Fletcher & Flynn's.

Fillmore said. "What took you so long?"

"We were attacked," Kim replied.

"By creepy shadow things!" Lilo added for good measure. Beside her, Stitch made an impression, lolling about like a zombie and making hissing sounds.

Kim instinctively ran a hand over the scratch marks on her forearm. That fight—less than an hour ago—had not been her finest hour. Never before had she faced a situation so one-sided, a foe she was unable to even touch. She thumbed the torchlight strapped to her belt, her thoughts straying to Ron. He had come shining through in her moment of helplessness, as he always did. Ron: her underrated knight in shining armor.

As if he read her mind, Ron appeared by her side, placing a hand around her shoulder. He looked at her and smiled, and that was all she needed. Parts of his sweater were torn and scratched up, but he seemed fine, for the most part. Kim allowed herself to breathe easy.

"They were shade demons," Jake Long was explaining. "I was on my way over here when I sensed that felwing. He was driving those wheels." He jabbed a finger at the limo. "Luckily I managed to trace it by its scent. Felwings give off a nasty stank."

"Apparently, there's a whole secret world out there in which these magical things live," said Ron, matter-of-factly. "Jake told us all about it. Did you guys know he's a dragon?"

"Are you kids alright?" asked Betty, ignoring Ron.

Kim nodded. "We managed. We thought you sent the car."

"We did," said Fillmore thoughtfully. "The driver was probably compromised, though. This is bad. Whatever we're dealing with, it knows we're onto it."

"That doesn't have to be a bad thing," said Lilo. "It means we're on the right track, right?"

Director smiled thinly and nodded.

"I'm sorry for getting you into that," Fillmore said. "It was a situation we overlooked. Rest assured it won't happen again."

He turned and flashed a silver card before a security scanner, and together they headed through the automatic doors and found themselves in the middle of the biggest science fair Kim had ever seen. This wasn't some geeky high school competition, or one of those college career road shows where the engineering kids tried to impress bored potential employers. This would have made Wade drool a pool in awe and envy.

In one corner of the octagon-shaped lobby was a giant robotic arm, busy writing complex formulas on a touch-screen wall. In between equations, the arm would pause and make a peace sign for a class of touring students. The gaggle of youngsters whipped out their cameras and snapped several photos, before moving on to the next attraction, an elaborate chemical fountain which spewed forth clouds of pretty, iridescent vapor. Streams of colorful liquids flowed along transparent tubes that crisscrossed around several oversized beakers and test-tubes, creating a wondrous playground that would have gotten Kim excited about chemistry classes a long time ago. Those days, thankfully, were behind her now; her major in media and social economics hardly required her to know about the periodic table or creating gaseous explosions that smelled like rotten eggs.

Right by the mega chemistry set was a talking holographic head comprised of a million other tiny faces. It spoke a multitude of languages all at once, its many voices booming across the building's PA system. Interestingly, though, Kim found she could pick up each distinct voice and even make out what they were saying—the languages she understood, that is. A floating neon sign above the head read 'The Collective'.

There were other things Kim wished they had more time to gawk at: robot snakes playing soccer; an impressive fort made up of recycled material; a telescopic device that generated rainbows. She had seen many amazing things in her short lifetime, but being in this place made Kim feel like a child again. Everything was new and exciting, and the world was one big wondrous playground just waiting to be explored.

"Whoa…" Ron breathed beside her. His hand found hers, and they let themselves be lost for a moment, taking in the amazing, larger-than-life sights before them.

"Alright, kids," said Director, snapping her fingers and the kids out of their stupor. "This is all very nice, but we have work to do, remember?"

"C'mon, Director," said Fillmore. "It's not every day you get to visit the biggest scientific theme park in the world." The Captain almost smiled a genuine smile, and Kim decided it looked good on him.

"You should visit this place more often," she told him.

He shrugged and led them towards what Kim had presumed were elevators. When the doors parted, however, they stepped into a small enclosure lined up with cushioned leather seats. A pair of visors was placed on each chair, which were equipped with beeping control panels on the armrest.

Lilo was the first to claim a seat, with Stitch hot on her heels. The duo put on their visors and looked hard at each other, before breaking out into individual air-guitar solos. Ron took the next seat and proceeded to make the appropriate sound effects, drawing a sigh and headshake from Kim. She walked up to a chair and sat beside Ron, cautiously putting on the visors. Betty, Fillmore and Jake looked each other, then shrugged and surrendered themselves to the beckoning of the leather seats.

Suddenly, a computerized voice said, "Where to, adventurers?"

At the sound, Kim jumped in her chair. Then her visor went completely black, and she was lost in darkness. It reminded her of the shade demons, and she came close to prying off the visors. But then something spectacular happened, and now she was hovering in white space, holographic displays all about her. She realized, then, what this was all about, and said, "Take me to Fletcher and Flynn."

The holograms disintegrated and reassembled, and Kim was now standing before a doorway which led into an office composed of blue, neon light. It looked like a typical office setting—four walls, a couch and bookshelf in the corner, a birch desk by the window and one of those wheeled chairs on either sides. Kim had to admit—she was a little disappointed.

"Please step in, adventurer," said the computer.

Kim shrugged and put one ungrounded foot forward, heading towards the holographic room. But as she passed the threshold, the simulation came to an end, and the white nothingness became black again. Slowly, Kim peeled off her visor and blinked; she was in the elevator-cum-experiential-theatre again. Her body was tingling, her vision blurred. There was a strange buzz of euphoria in her head, and she felt like she was still floating in that otherworldly white space. Unwittingly, she caught herself grinning, and tried in vain to stop. She looked around; the others seemed equally disorientated, wearing the same silly grins—except for Director and Fillmore, that is.

"That was so cool!" exclaimed Lilo and Ron in unison. Jake nodded in agreement, though his smile faded quickly.

They exited the elevator and walked along a stretch of winding corridor. The walls were clear glass, a vast aquarium filled with a wide spectrum of exotic fish. Flounders, clownfish, lionfish and seahorses darted behind beautiful corals and undersea rocks. Stitch found pleasure in scaring the aquarium's residents by ramming himself against the reinforced tampered glass. Upon further inspection, Kim realized that the glass also doubled up as a touch screen panel, and that touching the panels would bring up blueprints of various inventions designed by, Kim assumed, Fletcher & Flynn's.

The portfolio was, simply put, nothing short of breathtaking. If the lobby had been any measure of the company's success, it was only the bottom of the meter. Floating theme parks; life-size RC vehicles; robotic pets; compact snow-making machines; a shrinking submarine; satellite dishes that doubled up as weather machines.

"This is...impossible. None of these can be real, can they?" said Kim. She looked to Fillmore for an answer.

"Officially, they're not," he replied, a half-smirk on his face. "The Organization pays them not to be. They have other projects that actually exist, though. Amusement parks, video games, designer toys. Stuff like that."

"They also run a chain of lemonade stands," said Betty. Ron laughed, but the sound faded to a miserable hiccough when her expression remained vapid.

At long last, they arrived at an ornate door marked 'F&F' and, below that sign, 'I Know What We're Gonna Do Today'. Kim decided not to ask. As Fillmore raised his hand to knock, the door swung open, revealing the same four-walled, typical office setting they had all seen on the simulator. Again, Kim couldn't help but feel disappointed. She had expected more. A lot more.

Behind the birch desk sat a young teenage boy who couldn't have been older than a high school sophomore, fiddling with a Rubik's Cube. He had an angular face and a nose like a hawk's beak, and when he looked up to regard his guests, his big, round eyes sparkled with intelligence and inquisitiveness. There was a platypus on the desk beside him, though whether it was real or a wooden statue, Kim had to admit it was hard to tell. It just laid there, motionless, eyes creepily locked in a staring contest against a Newton's cradle.

"Ah, Captain Fillmore," said the teen with a profound air. He got up and shook the Captain's hand. "We've been expecting you." Then he turned to Kim, Ron, Lilo, Jake and Betty. "You'll have to forgive my brother, Ferb. He's tied up with one of our personal projects at the moment."

"Wait, wait," Kim interjected. "You're saying this is…"

Fillmore nodded. "Everyone, meet Phineas Flynn: co-owner of Fletcher & Flynn Inventions."


	12. What Are We Gonna Do Today? (Part 2)

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 12 – What Are We Gonna Do Today? (Part 2)**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Kim Possible, Fillmore, _and _Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

Four different voices went: "Wow."

Getting out from behind his desk, Phineas flashed a million-watt smile as he shook all their hands, including Stitch's ("Wow, a real-life alien genetic experiment! Ours didn't go so well. Long story…"). He made it a point to introduce them to the platypus, which he called 'Perry'. It purred at them, nonchalantly substantiating its existence. Then Phineas flicked a switch on his belt, and seven robotic chairs rolled in from a side door, stopping right behind their guests. Ron sat down immediately, and the chair reclined. A look of bliss came onto Ron's face as he sank into the soft leather and let out a contented sigh.

Now that they were all comfortable, Phineas returned behind his desk and said, "So, ladies and gents, what can I do for you?"

"Captain Fillmore didn't tell you why we're here?" asked Kim.

Phineas shook his head. "The Captain merely said he would drop by with guests. He never mentioned why he was coming. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like the usual business visit."

"I'm afraid it isn't," said Fillmore, leaning forward. "We are facing a crisis that may have something to do with your company."

The young entrepreneur ran a hand through his tuft of ginger hair. "Our company, huh? That doesn't sound good."

"Mr. Flynn," said Director, "do you know anything about a Dimensional Rift Inducer?"

Phineas' eyes lit up. "Oh, that thing? We made it, but we were never sure if it worked. We did manage to make some fluctuations in the space-time continuum, but that was it. The Inducer's in lockdown now."

"What did you do with the original plans?" asked Fillmore.

"Frozen. The plans were transferred to our KIV files."

"Well, we have reason to believe those plans have been stolen without your knowledge," said Director. "Perhaps through a backdoor?"

"That's not possible," replied Phineas, shaking his head. "No one else has access to our files, except for authorized F&F personnel and certain members of the Organization. We have a failsafe for every failsafe. The thought of anyone stealing even rejected plans is…ridiculous."

Kim silently agreed. Fletcher & Flynn's security systems were impossible to crack, as Wade had previously—and painstakingly—discovered.

"What if the infiltrator had a magical background?" asked Jake.

Phineas blinked. "You mean like green screen?" There was a brief but awkward silence, then Ron burst out laughing.

"Green screen! I get it, magical…background. Good one!"

"Thanks!" said Phineas, grinning. "And to answer your question, we have wards to guard against magical back-hackers as well. We're perfectly guarded against magical creatures, evil scientists, guys in cheap suits, terrorists and—" he nodded at Stitch "—all known aliens."

Stitch stuck his tongue out, unimpressed.

Gesturing at his computer, Phineas said, "You're welcome to try."

Stitch folded his arms smugly; challenge accepted. The blue alien jumped up to the desk and began tapping away on the keyboard.

"Stitch is good with computers," Lilo whispered to Ron, who gave her a thumbs-up.

Within five minutes, however, Stitch was smashing his head against the computer screen and attempting to peel his eyelids off, alien vulgarities and green spittle sputtering from his mouth. Phineas didn't seem to mind, clearly basking in the glory of his undefeated security system.

"Told'ya. Our security is fool—"

A whining alarm began to sound, cutting him off, and a beacon descended from a hatch in the ceiling, bathing the office in a red light.

"You were saying?" said Lilo.

"That's a code-red siren, people!" shouted Phineas. "I never thought we would have to use it, but someone's broken into the building!"

A holographic display of the building's schematics appeared all around them, but at this point, Kim was no longer surprised. Four blinking red dots were moving along air ducts on the fifth and seventeenth floor, and they were moving fast.

Phineas studied the display. "The shock pads in the ducts have been deactivated, so have the other stuff I thought were redundant. Several cameras are down, too."

"Goblins," said Jake, sniffing the air. "Not far from here. You guys stay here. I'll handle them."

Kim raised an eyebrow. "Er, no way? We're in this together."

"No. We're not a team. I fly solo."

"There're four of them, Jake," Lilo said, and Stitch nodded in agreement. "You can't be at four places at once."

"You don't understand!" shot Jake, his sudden anger making Lilo step back in surprise. "This isn't anything any of you understand! They could have more shade demons with them, or something much worse. Things haven't even begun to go bad, and you guys already got beat up pretty nasty!"

Kim stared at the young Asian boy wordlessly. He was so young, not much older than Phineas, and certainly not older than Kim or Ron. Yet his eyes were aged, deep, glistening pools of black; what could they possibly have seen? How could someone his age bear so much pain behind those dark, dark eyes? Gazing into them, Kim felt a sharp pang in her heart, as if something had constricted it. She wanted to say something, do anything to make it go away, but feared she might choke.

Then Ron said, "Hey man, it's okay. I don't understand half the stuff Kim and I go through, but we make it out at the end of the day. You know why? Cuz' we're a team, that's why."

"Exactly!" Lilo said. "We're one big _ohana_. None of us get left behind."

The alarm was still blaring, yet no one in the office said anything. In fact, they seemed almost to not notice, all content to look at Jake, who was now standing in the dead center of the room, surrounded by seven pairs of eyes. The holographic display swiveled slowly around them, while the red dots inched ever closer to a single, octagonal spot on the schematics.

"Well," said Fillmore. "What's it gonna be?"

Breathing in deep, Jake shut his eyes, forming tight lines around them. When he opened them again, they were crimson, alive with a fire both fearsome and alluring. He smiled.

"C'mon, Dragon Up!"


	13. Enter the Beak

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 13 – Enter the Beak**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Fillmore, _and _Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

Ferb Fletcher, as his brother had mentioned, was busy in one of the building's many workshops. This one was Workshop 17, to be exact, which also doubled up as a hangar. It was huge, taking up two entire floors, and housed several fantastic inventions designed by the main board members, which basically meant just Phineas and Ferb.

Having completed work on the personal project Phineas had mentioned, Ferb slipped out from under the monster truck to admire the copter blades he had just finished installing. The truck stared at him with fiery headlight eyes and a spiked bumper like a fanged, gaping maw.

A thud and a high-pitched squeal sounded from under the truck, and a frail-looking Indian boy in bright, grease-stained overalls crawled out from behind the left rear wheel, rubbing the back on his head and getting fresh grease all over his dark, curly hair.

"Are you okay, Baljeet?" asked Ferb, genuinely concerned. His voice was slick with an English accent, undiminished by the years he had spent living in America. It made him sound sophisticated and, as Phineas tended to point out, was a big hit with the ladies. Ferb couldn't say he agreed, though.

Baljeet, still squinting from the pain, said, "I think I can literally feel my head pulsating." His accent, unlike Ferb's, had thinned considerably since his childhood, possibly a deliberate consequence of much bullying.

As an Englishman, however diluted, Ferb did his best not to let his pity show, though he had to admit Baljeet's life could suck hard at times. Despite his kind heart, intelligence and ability to be exceptionally useful in the face of difficulty, the kid was extremely clumsy, not to mention a terror with girls and a bully-magnet. So yes, while Ferb did try to stay true to his unexpressive English roots, sometimes that façade of nonchalance failed. This was one of those times.

"Don't look at me like that!" scolded Baljeet, his voice a thin whine. "Just get me some aspirin or an icepack or something."

There was a mini-fridge in the workshop's pantry, and Ferb was about to go do just that when an alarm rang and a red warning light glared on and off.

"No time for that," said Ferb. "That must be the security alarm."

Baljeet made a face. "You don't say."

The communicator on Ferb's wristwatch beeped, and he brought it up to eye level. A holographic display of his stepbrother's face appeared. Phineas appeared exceptionally ecstatic, in spite of the deafening siren.

"Ferb! We've got guests, and intruders!" said Phineas. "One of them's a dragon!"

"The intruders?" asked Baljeet, who was peering over Ferb's shoulder.

"No, the guests."

"What of the intruders?" Ferb asked, trying to retain his brother's focus.

"Our guests say they're goblins. Go figure." Phineas did a shrugging action. "I'm sending you the coordinates. Activate protocol: Tango Bravo."

"Roger."

"Tango Bravo?" said Baljeet. "That old thing? You guys haven't used it in almost two years. How do you know it still works?"

"We've been making upgrades," explained Ferb. He started to walk down the workshop, passing several half-constructed creations. "It's more like Tango Bravo 3.72 now."

Baljeet frowned. "How did those numbers come about?" The question derived a blank stare from Ferb, and the Indian boy replied, "Never mind. Forget I asked."

The alarm was getting louder now, its frequency rising steadily and piercingly. Increasing their pace, Ferb and Baljeet passed a detached head of a giant robot dog, a plane shaped like an eagle and a deflated weather balloon. Behind the balloon was a sliding panel marked 'Tango Bravo'. Below it, scrawled in chalk, were the numbers '3.72'.

Splaying his palm against a sensor, Ferb deactivated the panel's locking mechanisms. It slid open, exposing an impressive mechanical suit painted jet black and bright yellow, resting in a steel tube. The suit was humanoid in shape, and stood nearly a head taller than Ferb, a head and a half for Baljeet. The headgear was a separate piece, shaped like the face of some mutant bird of prey, black and golden and foreboding.

"It used to be bigger," commented Baljeet.

Ferb nodded. It did use to be bigger, when Phineas and he had first invented it. Back then, it had been designed for two kids to pilot. Several modifications later, it was now a much sleeker, stealthier solo ride.

"Command override: double-oh-nine," said Ferb. At the command, the red LED eyes on the helm lit up, and the suit's chest piece flipped open. Ferb climbed onboard, slotting his hands and legs into the appropriate cavities as robotic arms fitted on his headpiece. A vast array of information flooded his vision, then, as the suit's visor soaked in every bit of data around him. He turned and focused on Baljeet, and the suit brought up the boy's race, iris hue, approximate age, hair length, gender and estimated body-mass index.

Baljeet shuddered under Ferb's crimson gaze. "I feel naked. Get a move on already!"

With the alarm still ringing, the suited-up Ferb activated the main controls and said, "The Beak, ready for launch!"

The steel tube gave way, falling like an elevator without safety cables, the suit still on it. Ferb felt a moment of nausea which quickly went away, then he stepped hard on an acceleration pad and the Beak was off, jetting through the ventilation shafts like a rocket on crack. The building's schematics opened up in his viewport: four red lights were swimming through the vents.

He found his first target almost immediately after launch. Surprisingly, the air ducts were spacious enough for the goblin to stand tall, though that meant little in terms of relative height. Ferb connected a gauntleted fist with the goblin's left cheek and felt a crack. The goblin reeled back, concussed before it even hit the floor.

Continuing through the shafts, Ferb was about to make a sharp turn when an explosion caused violent reverberations through the air vents, throwing the Beak off course. Ferb tried to recalibrate, but a second blast sent him through the duct grate and into a pile of dusty old crates and cardboard boxes.

"Ouch…" Ferb struggled to get up, and when he finally did, he realized he knew exactly where he was. This was storage room 55, one of his favorites. Phineas and he had moved a cartload of childhood memorabilia here, and Ferb took additional joy in keeping an inventory of the artifacts in this room. It was almost therapeutic.

Then it occurred to Ferb what else was here, and why a bunch of creatures he had not known to exist would want it.

"Phineas," he said into his mouthpiece. "By any chance, are these goblins looking for the Rift Inducer?"

"That's an affirmative, Beak," replied Phineas.

"Well then, I think we have a problem."

"And what would that be?"

Ferb turned around, to a double-bolted iron door, then back up at the hole in the duct he had unwittingly created. At the edge, two leathery-skinned, hungry-looking goblins stared down at the door, jabbing their scimitars in its direction and yammering in an unintelligible language.

"I think I just led them to it."

"No worries, brother. Reinforcements are on their way. You better duck."

A warning sensor in the Beak armor went off, but before Ferb could react, a prototype racecar came flying through the wall behind him. A blue, cuddly creature the size of a koala jumped in, a belt full of flashlights around its tiny waist, followed soon after by a little girl in a red dress. If Ferb had to guess, it was the alien teddy bear that threw the car, creating the gaping hole that was once a bulletproof wall.

"Aloha!" said the girl, waving at Ferb cheerfully. "I'm Lilo, and that's Stitch. You must be Phineas' brother. Nice suit you got there."

"Thank you," Ferb replied. His sensors pulled his attention back to the direction of the vents: the goblins had made their way down and were now standing on a pile of crates, weapons drawn, ready for a fight. They were a lot larger than the one he had taken down earlier, he noted dourly. "Keep yours eyes open, Lilo."

"Gotcha." Lilo raised a Fletcher & Flynn taser and fired, catching the first goblin by surprise and sending spasms of pain through its body.

The second goblin, seeing its partner in agony, made a quick run for it, ducking behind the crates for safety. Ferb raised a hand and let loose a pulse of concussive force, blasting the crate aside. Using the resulting fog as cover, the goblin lunged forward, swinging its scimitar wildly.

A blue ball of fur and fuzz ricocheted off the wall and right into the goblin, throwing it off course and right out of midair. The ball dropped to the floor and rolled over to Ferb's side, unfurling into Stitch, who seemed very pleased with himself.

Dazed, the goblin scrambled to its feet. Its partner had recovered from the taser attack, and was now hiding behind a makeshift shield of scrap wood like a stung puppy. Having regrouped, the goblins looked at each other, then at Ferb, Lilo and Stitch. An unspoken agreement was exchanged between them, and they charged at Lilo, grunting murderously.

Stitch and Ferb reacted immediately, sliding in between Lilo and the goblin pair. A scuffle quickly ensued and, just as quickly, came to an obvious end: it only took two energy pulses from Ferb to knock out the first goblin; Stitch broke his foe's blade with his fist and proceeded to scratch its ugly face off.

"That was easier than expected," said Ferb. "Got anything else for us, Phineas?"

Phineas' voice sounded urgent over the comm. link. "The rest of our guests might have trouble in the Grid Room."

"What are they up against?"

"Not a clue. Half the area was blacked out before they got in. Now I've got nothing, not even communications."

"What's in the Grid Room?" asked Lilo. She had a finger against her ear. Ferb doubted she was digging for gold; more likely that his brother had equipped her with their patented earpieces, which shrank or expanded according to the size of the wearer's ear canal. In addition to being high performance, they were designed to be extremely comfortable and undetectable—perfect for the spy game.

"Backdoor access to every invention my brother and I ever conceived," said Ferb. "The Rift Inducer can't be activated without a set of codes that can only be found in that room. How our intruders would know this is beyond me."

"Only four bad guys," barked Stitch. He put up two stubby fingers, each tipped with a scythed claw.

"I took out another one in the vents," said Ferb.

"There's one more," said Lilo. "Not enough to give a dragon, two college heroes and a pair of soldiers a run for their money."

"We have a dragon on our team?" asked Ferb.

"They must have found some way to bring in reinforcements without alerting the security system," said Phineas. "Look, can we figure this out _after _we find the others?"

"You got it," Lilo said. "C'mon, armor dude. Let's get a move on."

_A/N: Hello, everyone. I hope you've been enjoying The Disney Experiment thus far. As I will be overseas for 3 weeks, there will not be any updates until I'm back on 4 Nov. Till then, thank you for reading and here's wishing everyone joy and adventure!_


	14. Of Vampires & Dragons

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 14 – Of Vampires & Dragons**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Kim Possible, Fillmore, _and _Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

The moment Betty Director stepped into the capacious Grid Room, she knew it was a trap. Maybe it was just her intuition, built up and tested over all her years in the spy trade, or maybe it was the fact that half the room was alit with bright azure neon lights running like streams across the ceilings and walls, while the other half was shrouded in darkness.

Betty was used to darkness. In fact, some days she welcomed it. She was also used to working with a ragtag team of seeming misfits, and making that team work; although, Kim and Ron aside, she made it a point never to involve herself with adolescent children.

It had been Fillmore who suggested that Lilo and Stitch go alone to storage room 55, while the others teamed up to take on the Grid Room. He had, in light of the blackout, theorized that there might be shade demons lurking which Phineas' security system could not detect—which explained the industrial light strapped to Betty's belt. It was a sound theory, but the leader of Global Justice could not help but wonder if sending a little girl off by herself into the heart of a dangerous situation was such a good idea, even if she was accompanied by a genetically-engineered extraterrestrial being.

The last goblin on Phineas' sensors was not a goblin at all—not that Betty had any prior experience with the actual creature. Still, she did have some preconceptions about how they'd look like, or smelled like. This creature, whatever it was, did not match up to those preconceptions in the least, and neither was it similar to anything she had heard Jake Long or Fillmore previously describe.

For one thing, this final intruder to the Fletcher & Flynn compound was distinctly human. Also, it was distinctly female, resembling a young woman in her mid-twenties. Yet there was something about her that made Betty cringe, something that told the spymaster she was no simple girl. Sporting a cheap pair of shades and a faded leather jacket, she was extremely pale and sickly gaunt, exuding a numbing aura which made Betty shiver. At the sight of Jake, she smiled, baring fangs like those of some venomous viper.

"American Dragon," hissed the intruder in a Romanian accent. "I've been waiting." She removed her shades, revealing a pair of eyes as crimson as her ponytailed hair.

"A strigoi," said Jake, who hovered close to Betty in dragon form. "Vampires that feed on dragon blood. They're fast and deadly, so watch yourselves."

Ron made a face. "She needs to be introduced to Bueno Nacho."

"Got anything else we can use?" asked Kim.

"Yeah," Jake replied. "They hate sunlight, and they're fast."

Taking her cue, the strigoi shot forward like a bullet, and was behind Betty in an instant. Betty heard the demon hiss, "You're pretty." The superspy dropped swiftly to the floor, rolling out of harm's way.

The strigoi laughed, then, as Jake, Kim, Ron and Fillmore rushed at her. She stepped and spun gracefully out of their reach, like some dreadful ballerina caught in a demonic performance.

Betty got to her feet and watched the fight, waiting for any opportunity to join in. For a moment, it seemed like Fillmore had managed to gain some leverage, throwing a punch that nearly grazed the strigoi's lip. But the vampire-like creature caught hold of his arm and flung him into a computer console fixed to the wall; the console sparked and hissed its last breath in angry protest.

Jumping in, Betty caught the strigoi in the shoulder with a roundhouse kick. But the strigoi barely seemed to notice. Instead, she jabbed Kim in the collarbone with her elbow, proceeding to dodge a fireball from Jake.

Clearly upset about his girlfriend, Ron rushed in wildly. His uncanny fighting style worked for a moment as he managed to grapple the strigoi around its waist. Betty sidestepped out of the way as the pair crashed to the floor, setting off a digital firework display. A few moments of struggling, and Ron fell victim to an uppercut and a kick to the gut.

The strigoi rose to her feet effortlessly. There was barely a scratch on her, or even a ginger hair out of place. Fangs exposed, she smiled mirthlessly at her two remaining opponents: Betty and Jake.

"You said she's a vampire, right?" said Betty.

Jake nodded. "Why?"

The superspy rested a hand over a silver blade on her belt. "Let's see if she likes being staked!" She drew the blade and sent it flying in one swift motion—it found lodging in the strigoi's chest, right where a human heart should have been.

But still the strigoi remained smiling. She thumbed the hilt of the weapon, the slowly pulled it out of her chest, letting the dark blood run slowly down her white shirt.

Jake scratched his mane. "Yeah, should have told you. Staking a strigoi won't kill it. Neither will garlic, or holy water, or any of those other things they use in movies. Only sunlight."

"Could have told me earlier," said Betty. She kept her focus on the strigoi; the monster was still smiling.

"My turn."

Betty didn't even see the strigoi move. She sensed, rather than saw, the blade coming, and found herself ducking again. To her left, Jake did the same. The blade slipped past her shoulder, drawing blood and leaving a minor cut.

"Yo! You missed strigoi!" Jake shouted.

The vampire hissed. "I have a name, American Dragon! It is Alisha!"

She was ready to rant, to enter a torturous monologue which would maybe shed some light on the enemy's plans. Betty had much experience with megalomaniacs who talked too much. Wasting no time, Jake fired three spurts of flame at the female vampire, but it proved futile against the strigoi's inhuman agility.

Then, just like that, dragon and strigoi became still for a long while, two ancient and natural enemies on a tense, temporary parley. Eyes like flame locked onto eyes like blood. Crouched low on the ground, Betty felt if she stared hard enough into either of them, she might just catch fire and lose all will to fight. Perhaps, she dared think, she was in way over her head. And so was Monogram, and, though he would deny it, Fillmore.

Oh, Fillmore... Betty turned her head just a half-inch, still keeping the enemy within sight of her good eye. The Captain was lying unconscious against the shattered computer console in an awkward position. His left arm appeared twisted, angled painfully behind his back. Was he still—oh, yes. She sighed inwardly in relief; he was still breathing.

She looked away then, not because she couldn't bear to see a comrade in peril. No, she had seen a lot of that, and trained herself never to fear imminent death, but to face it with courage, and the knowledge that she had done her best in any given situation. She looked away because Jake was speaking.

"Why are you here, Alisha?"

"I was amongst the orphaned when you killed our queen. The master redeemed me," said Alisha, her voice reflecting neither sorrow nor anguish.

"The master?" Jake said. "You mean the Dark Dragon?"

"You will do well not to speak his name!" This time, the strigoi's tone was thick with vehemence.

"So it's true, then," Jake continued, ignoring her outburst. "The Dark Dragon is back. What's he planning?"

The strigoi smiled mirthlessly. "He shall gather his children back to him, and we shall aid him in his return to glory. Then, and only then…" She leaned forward, and Jake flinched as she whispered, "He will destroy you, and everyone you've ever cared for."

Jake didn't reply. His powerful dragon muscles coiled and tensed. His tail flailed restlessly, and the fury in his gaze was mixed with something else.

Fear.

"Oh, how I'd love to taste your blood, dragon," said Alisha, licking her line-thin lips. "But of course, the master wants a fair fight. And he will have none of this." She gestured to Betty and the others without so much as glancing at them. "So he sent me to take them out, and I'm guessing that little Hawaiian girl and her pet aren't faring so well, either. After all, who sends an infant to fight a war of adults, huh?"

"I'm not an infant!"

Betty turned at the sound, and so did Jake. Silhouetted against the doorway to the Grid Room was Lilo, flanked on each side by a growling Stitch and a black-and-gold mechanical humanoid.

"And she did have a little help," said the man in the robotic suit. "I'm the Beak, by the way. Pleasure to meet you." He raised a hand, releasing a pulse of energy that threw the strigoi into the wall. Electrical cables sparked and cackled as the Beak fired a volley of blasts, stripping the strigoi of any chance at a counter-attack.

The Beak advanced steadily, interjecting the rhythmic pulse blasts with a high-intensity laser fired from a nozzle on his shoulder. Betty held her breath; the tables were turning. Alisha was slowly being pushed across the room, right towards a stirring Fillmore.

"Enough!" screamed Alisha, loud enough for the Beak to falter. She reached for Fillmore's neck, wrenching the silver security pass from its lanyard like a viper snagging its lunch. "Wretched mortals. The shadowlings hunger and they shall feast!"

She slid the card into a slot in the smoking console and turned it like a key; a computer voice sang, "Class O access granted. Security override activated. Commencing shutdown."

With a dying hum, the remaining half of the room still lit sank into the darkness. The blue neon faded to a deep navy, then into pure black.

Betty was wrong; she did _not _welcome the darkness. Not this one, anyway. It was so much more than a lack of light—it was cold, tangible.

All around them, more than three dozen pairs of red eyes flared to life, casting a scarlet glow in the shadows.

It made the darkness that much more complete.

_A/N: I'm back from my overseas trip and would like to thank everyone for the wonderful support and reviews I've been receiving. For all those who have been giving suggestions for the story, I want you all to know that I have been giving them serious consideration. Please note that while I try to stay as faithful to the original cartoons as I can, certain things have to be left out to prevent the story from getting overly complicated. Nonetheless, keep those criticisms, reviews and suggestions coming. I greatly appreciate them!_


	15. Light at the End

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 15 – Light at the End**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Kim Possible, Fillmore, _and _Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

It was crazy in there, like fighting in a lightless cave while a dozen bats swarmed around him. Stitch didn't like bats, didn't like how they made his ears sting.

The vampire woman was laughing, a high-pitched sound that made his genetically-engineered brain go a little woozy. The shade demons, invisible in the complete dark, clawed at him, scratching blue fur off his hide. Stitch tried activating his night vision abilities, but all he saw were a thousand evil eyes flitting all about him.

Snarling and growling, Stitch drew his flashlights and shone them into the dark. The sudden light nearly seared his eyes. He couldn't tell if he got them, but it didn't stop him from trying. There were one or two agonized screeches, but they were drowned out by the crazy lady's laughter.

It was useless. He was practically blind, and so very helpless. Where were the other fighters? Were they alright? The Possible girl and her mate were unconscious when he first entered the room. Did they awake? What about the robot guy, or Lilo?

Lilo! Where was Lilo?

"Stitch!"

He heard her voice. He spun around wildly, trying to pinpoint Lilo's location. But it was impossible, here in the absolute dark. He could barely see his own paws.

She called out to him again, his best friend in the universe. He couldn't tell if she was hurt, but she needed him.

With a sound like molten chocolate being squelched out of a piping bag, Stitch released his second pair of arms. Now he was wielding four flashlights, and spinning them around skillfully like lightsabers. Tinny screams echoed through the shadows as Stitch cut an unseen path across the Grid Room. It took him a while to notice the girl's laughter had stopped.

Then someone kicked him across the chest, sending him back a couple of feet. He sat up and shook his head. If his vision was blurred, it was hard to tell. One of his torches was no longer in his hand. As he struggled to recover, he felt rather than saw the shade demons descending upon him, and roared defiantly.

Curling his flexible body into a tight ball, the little alien bounced himself off the ground hard and into the air, spinning intensely as he did so. Gaining momentum quickly, he ricocheted wildly off whatever surface he could come into contact with, ignoring the scathing claws of the bloodthirsty shade demons.

Stitch would have liked to believe he had a plan. But the truth was he didn't. He was simply reacting on pure instinct, a survival instinct programmed into him by a less-than-sane evil genius scientist, and heightened by the unbreakable bond he had forged with Lilo over the short time they had known each other. Those two things put together were a force to be reckoned with—and they always seemed to get him out of a fix when things got really bad.

And they were just about to do so then.

By sheer, uncalculated luck, Stitch smashed into a short-circuiting computer panel. His fur stood on end as a jolt of static tickled his hide, but he hardly felt it. His lucky streak rolled on, because he had struck just the right set of wires, and the right set of broken buttons, overriding the security override the redhead woman had set off.

"Security override overridden," said the computer voice.

The lights went on slowly, like a beautiful, neon-blue sunrise, accompanied by a chorus of bloodcurdling, hair-raising screams. Stitch recovered just in time to watch the last of the shadows dissipate through squinting eyes.

Quickly, in big batches, the shade demons met their demise. Only then did Stitch realize just how many of them there were, and that knowledge made the fearless intergalactic hero shiver: an entire horde, filling the entire second half of the cavernous Grid Room. They clamored and writhed against one another, their red eyes flashing malevolently even as they sizzled into nothing under the glare of the lights.

Yet their numbers were dwindling, and Stitch took some comfort and satisfaction in that. Soon, only the mad woman remained. Her laughter had ceased, and now a look of sheer fury dominated her pale visage.

Kim and Ron were up, the former leaning on her boyfriend for support. Both of them looked rather shaken up. Rufus the mole rat was perched on Ron's shoulder, baring its front teeth at the enemy. Fillmore had awoken as well. His body was a bloodied, broken mess. Other than that, he seemed perfectly fine. Composed, undaunted, he wore a thin smile that said it all: they had won this battle.

"Good work, Stitch!" said Lilo. Stitch beamed at the sight of her. To his relief, she appeared unharmed, though her hair was a little disheveled. She had her taser in one hand, a flashlight in the other.

"Yeah, nice work blue dude," said Jake, the dragon boy. "Now, let's finish this." Beside him, the lady with the eye-patch nodded in agreement.

They closed in on their common foe, circling her. Stitch was all teeth and claws; Lilo took steady aim with her taser. The robot bird-man held one palm splayed casually in front of him; Kim and Ron both held up guns that looked unsettlingly like hairdryers. Jake was in dragon form and had taken up a fighting stance right next to Betty Director; Fillmore wielded a pistol with his good hand, his eyes focused on the vampire lady.

"Filthy pests," she hissed vehemently. "He will eradicate you all—"

In a flash, the American Dragon had his powerful arms around her and was gone, leaving a hole in the roof. Stitch and the others gaped in shock as bits of the compound fell into the Grid Room.

"That's gonna leave a mark," said the Beak.

There was a faint, tinny scream which lasted several seconds. With his heightened senses, Stitch could smell something akin to overcooked marshmallows barbequed over rotten pork fat.

Then, finally, Jake descended through the series of holes he had created, reverting to human form as he landed.

"Well?" asked Fillmore.

Jake shot him a long, hard look. Then he replied, his voice dark, "It's done."

Stitch breathed easy again.

The lights were back on, the darkness gone. It was done.


	16. Everything Comes Together

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 16 – Everything Comes Together**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Kim Possible, Fillmore, _and _Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

"If we're gonna work as a team, you've gotta know the whole story."

Two hours after the battle in the Grid Room, Jake was addressing the group in a conference room situated right above Phineas' office. It was a spacious, circular room, with a round table in the centre carved from ancient-looking stone. Jake had mumbled something about Merlin when he first saw it. Phineas and Wade were with them, the latter joining them via holo-display.

The fight had taken a great deal out of most of them, and now that the dust had temporarily settled, their war wounds showed. Stitch was missing patches of fur and had scratch marks all across his tiny frame; Lilo had Fletcher & Flynn Regenerative Plasters all over her arms; Ron sported a bigger version of the same plaster on his forehead, while Kim had a big bruise on her collar bone, as well as bandages on her left leg. Fillmore's broken arm was wrapped in a cast, the rest of him mummified in bandages, though he didn't seem to notice. Only Betty and Ferb appeared alright, having sustained just a couple of superficial injuries.

Jake himself had been roughed up pretty bad. There was a cut across his cheek, and a ringing in his ears. Though the transition from dragon to human form sped up his recovery and restored most minor wounds, he still felt sore. The dragon in him was drained, the human, exhausted. But he was the American Dragon, and he did not have time to feel tired—not when the world was in jeopardy.

"Jake…" Fillmore began to say, but backed off when Jake shot him a look.

"They need to know, Fillmore," Jake said.

"What exactly do we need to know?" asked Betty, adjusting her eye-patch.

Jake took a deep breath before continuing, "Forget about the other theories you've had. There ain't no Monkey Daemon running around. We're facing something bigger and badder."

Ron shuddered. "Something worse than a giant demonic monkey?"

"He's called the Dark Dragon," said Jake, his voice quiet and low. "No one knows where he's from, only that he's bad news. The shade demons were created to serve him, and from the looks of it, he's got a small army of magical creatures at his disposal. Five years ago, I managed to banish him into another dimension, but now he's back."

"How?" asked Kim.

Jake shrugged honestly. "I don't know. But he's not at full power. That's the only reason we're still alive. Fillmore," he turned to the Captain. "Tell them."

Fillmore was silent for several long seconds. Finally, he sighed and said, "Some time back, I was working a case which led me to the sewers. I found the Dark Dragon there in his weakened state. There was a fight, and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was on the surface, barely alive."

"Did you find the temple again?" Phineas asked. There was a little too much fascination in his voice.

Fillmore shook his head. "It's gone."

"Maybe we could take a look," Lilo suggested.

"Fine by me," said the Captain. "But I don't see the point. I doubt we'll find it."

"Lilo's right. We should have a look of our own," said Betty. "There might have been something you missed out." Fillmore raised a brow at that, and Betty smiled slyly. "Even you make mistakes, Captain."

"Hardly," Fillmore said flatly. "But like I said, if you want to go down there, it's fine by me."

Jake was stroking his chin. "We'll need some sorta map."

"Considered it done," Kim said. "Wade?"

Wade held up two thumbs. "Sent out to your Kimmunicator and everyone else's cell phones."

"We'll also need equipment," said Betty. "Global Justice is willing to provide whatever we can to see this through, and I'm certain the Organization will do the same."

Fillmore was about to say something when Phineas interrupted, "That won't be necessary. While you guys were out fighting bad guys, Wade and I were trading design ideas. We've managed to get some cool stuff done up." He jumped out of his seat and headed for the door, gesturing for them to follow.

He led them out of the room and to the sensory elevator, which took them on a journey across cyberspace and twenty floors below ground.

In terms of spatial dimensions, the basement was like the rest of the compound—huge. Metal shelves stood in neat and distinct rows, host to a myriad of gadgets, toys and inventions. With Phineas in the lead, they moved quickly past the shelves and to the end of the basement, to a door marked 'armory'.

"You guys are gonna love this," said Wade, who was following them via a floating screen.

Phineas and Ferb flanked the wide steel door, each standing before a circular, electronic keypad. At the same time, they took out their silver access card and slid them into the available slots. The sound of heavy-duty locks and tumblers sliding aside reverberated through the hollow basement, driving Jake's dragon senses wild.

The doors opened, and behind it was a wall filled with all sorts of state-of-the-art tech. Jake heard Kim gasp, and before he could ask what it was, Wade said, "I thought we'd go retro this time."

"Let me do the honors," said Phineas. He waved dramatically at a white leotard fitted onto a well-endowed manikin. Lines of blue neon were woven into the material, alive with a shifting light that thrummed in the dimness. "Kim Possible, your new and improved battle-suit, complete with regenerative nanobots, force-field production capabilities, strength, speed and durability enhancers, a built-in holographic Kimmunicator, and, for good measure, solar pulse emitter."

While Kim admired her new outfit, Phineas moved down the line, towards a set of colorful firearms. "Lilo and Stitch, I talked to Mr. Bubbles and got access to the designs for some alien tech. These plasma guns have been integrated with the same solar emitter that's in Kim's suit: handy for shade demons and vampires."

Stitch applauded appreciatively at the sight of the unearthly weapons, a look of sinister enthusiasm on his face, prompting Kim to take a nervous step away from the overly-gleeful alien.

Phineas continued his pilgrimage across the long wall, flaunting more designer weapons and armaments. Apart from the battle-suit and plasma shooters, the wall also featured a strength-enhancing ring for Ron, a rocket-powered scooter for Lilo, integrated communication systems and portable jetpacks for everyone other than Jake, who was already equipped with his own built-in flight system.

At the end of his presentation, the young entrepreneur received a long and sincere standing ovation.

"Hey! I helped out too!" groaned Wade indignantly.

"Thank you Wade," Kim said with a wink.

"We didn't get you anything, Jake," said Ferb. "We figured you already had a dragon inside you, so you wouldn't need a toy."

Jake smiled briefly. "It's cool." It actually wasn't. He was _really _hoping for a toy from Fletcher & Flynn.

"Alright, looks like we're all set, people!" exclaimed Ron, flashing his power ring. "Man, I wish I had my monkey powers right now. I'd kick butt!"

"Be careful what you wish for," said Fillmore. But he didn't extrapolate further. "Everyone, go home and get some rest. I'll send out the details for our rendezvous tomorrow."

The armory's steel doors were resealed with a resounding clang, and the gang left the basement. Phineas and Ferb suggested a good-luck toast in their office, and that's where they ended up. An atmosphere of excitement and anxiety was ripe among them, but with it, a sense of victory, and a collective sigh of relief. What the heck, thought Jake, it was as good a time to celebrate as any.

"Hey," Phineas said suddenly. "Where's Perry?"


	17. Downtime for Reflection

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 17 – Some Downtime for Reflection **

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ Lilo & Stitch _and_ Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

The light bulb flickered thrice before coming back on fully again, much brighter than it had been. Ron yelped at the sudden burst of light, half an inch from his eyes. Half-blind, he clambered down the step ladder and into Kim's open arms.

"Thank you, hero," she said with a grateful smile.

Ron returned her hug. "You know, for a girl who can do everything, you'd think Kim Possible could change a faulty light bulb by herself."

"I can't do everything, Ron," said Kim. "But I can reward you by making you the best dinner you've ever tasted." She started towards her sad excuse for a kitchen, a small cloistered corner in her dormitory.

"You got us Bueno Nacho's weekly dinner special?" inquired Ron, his eyes wide with hopeful anticipation.

Kim sighed. She pulled out three paper bags and walked out from behind the kitchen counter. "Sadly, yes. See? I can't do everything after all."

"Love you anyway, KP," said Ron reassuringly. He took two bags from her: Rufus' pink, bald head peeked out from his pocket, and the mole rat rubbed its tiny paws together excitedly at the sight of the grease-stained bags.

They ate without speaking for a while, the easy silence broken only by the cracking of nacho chips, and Ron and Rufus' discourteous, raucous munching.

"Ron," Kim said suddenly, forcing Ron to look up in mid-bite.

He tried to speak, but his mouth was full of Grande-sized fast food. He swallowed, then tried again. "Yeah?"

Kim seemed hesitant, uncertain of how to choose her words. "Do you…ever think of our missions? About the things we do?"

"Yeah, sure," said Ron. "But, you know, why worry? We always win."

She took his hand with her right, touched the scar on his forehead with her left, and he realized she was being completely serious. So he listened intently, processing her words and emotions as she said, "Ron, we were knocked out cold today. We could have died."

There was a quiver in her voice that Ron had never heard before, and found hard to process. After all, this was Kim Possible, fearless undergrad adventurer. She could do _anything_. Having seen her at her best and worst, having witnessed all the strength and weakness she possessed, he had come to believe so firmly in this. He felt safe with her, as if her ability to accomplish anything rubbed off on him.

But there were times, he figured, that maybe—just maybe—she needed to lean on his strength as much as he relied on hers. He remembered a brief period when they had to be separated due to circumstances neither of them could control. Things had gone pretty bad, including missions, until they were eventually reunited again. So yes, maybe there _were _times the unbeatable Kim Possible needed her boyfriend to be strong for her, and maybe this was one of those times.

So he did the only thing he could—he held onto her hands and squeezed tight, saying, "KP, as long we're together, we're unstoppable. Not even a dark dragon can separate us."

Her lips curled into a smile, which he caught. Eyes locked, they sat silently at the table, Rufus sitting patiently beside their linked hands, and remained that way for a long while, radiating and absorbing the love that had sparked and grown from pre-kindergarten days. Something like that—intangible, yet powerful—was not easily broken.

Finally, Kim said, "Team?"

Ron leaned in to kiss her. When he pulled away, he whispered in reply, "Always."

* * *

When Lilo patched through to her home in Hawaii via the secured communications link set up in her hotel room by the Organization, the first thing she saw was her sister, Nani, slumped on the keyboard in front of the computer, sleeping. She must have been that way for more than an hour, because the spilled puddle of cola on the desk was now a sticky paradise for a growing swarm of flies and ants.

Lilo coughed into her headset, jolting her older sibling from her light slumber. Dressed in an oversized T-shirt, Nani appeared flustered, and had dark rings around her eyes. Her long, black hair was plastered to her face, which was covered in a thin film of cola and drool.

"Lilo!" she said at the sight of her little sister. Then she noticed the pesky army of insects beside her and made a disgusted grunt, swatting them away with wide, exaggerated motions.

"Hey, Nani," said Lilo. She watched as Nani tried to straighten herself out, and cringed. "Please don't tell me you were waiting for my call?"

Nani laughed tiredly. "What? No! Of course not, baby. Why would I do that? It's not like I have nothing _else _to do…"

"I've missed you too, Nani," Lilo said, cutting short her sister's rant.

Nani stopped and gazed affectionately at Lilo through the computer screen. She said, "So…how's the big city, huh?"

"The city's great!" Lilo exclaimed. "Everything's big and noisy and totally awesome! Stitch loves it too."

From the balcony, Stitch barked his agreement. Something squeaked in the background, but the sound became a squeal of utter terror, and was promptly followed by the rancor of Stitch knocking down five-star hotel property.

"He'd come to the screen," Lilo continued, "but he's busy chasing evil squirrels."

Nani made a face.

"I heard from Cobra Bubbles that you're extending your stay?"

Lilo nodded. "Something came up, but don't worry. It's nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yep. Stitch and I can handle it," Lilo assured her. "Isn't that right Stitch?"

The alien experiment didn't reply. More things breaking; the squeaking was now joined by a whole chorus of squeaks. The squirrel cavalry, Lilo guessed, had arrived.

"I'm sure you can," Nani said. "But don't forget to call back every once in a while. And don't eat the street food! No talking to strangers or hobos. And please remember to send your underwear for laundry services—"

"Alright, alright! I'm not a baby, Nani!" Lilo said, again shutting off Nani's overbearing, older-sister rant button.

Nani sniffed and looked cross for a moment. Then her expression softened and she said, "I love you, Lilo. Come back safe, alright?"

"Will do, captain. Love you too!"

Lilo switched off the computer screen and leaned back against her chair. She hadn't intended to keep the true nature of the situation from Nani, but there were things Lilo felt her sister didn't need to know. Without Jumba or Pleekly around, she would be left to her own worries, and knowing Nani, that could very well kill her.

Nani couldn't know that her beloved baby sister was about to throw-down with a big, bad dragon that was potentially more powerful than all the aliens they had ever faced combined. She would demand that Lilo returned to Hawaii immediately, knowing full well that the latter would do everything in her power to right a wrong. If Lilo did not heed the advice, Nani would be worried sick, and if Lilo did return home, both of them would have to bear that guilt of knowing they had failed to do the right thing.

That was why Lilo had put on a long-sleeved sweater, so Nani wouldn't see the scratches and bruises on her arms. That was why she had kept the full truth from her older sister, had not confessed to her about her fears. Because Lilo was afraid—the shade demons scared her more than any of the alien threats she had encountered. Though she hid it well, the darkness she had fallen into at the Grid Room was still grasping at her soul, and she wondered if she would ever recover from it.

Lilo closed her eyes, and the shadows returned. For a moment she wanted to scream, but she gritted her teeth and a beam of light shone in the dark. Nani appeared in her mind's eye, framed by the growing light. Then Jumba and Pleekly, even Gantu were there. And finally, Stitch—Lilo felt a sense of calm.

She opened her eyes, and returned to the light. The fear was still present, but it had subsided.

A crash and a groan resounded from the balcony, prompting Lilo to get off her chair and ran outside: the squirrel armada had laid siege to Stitch and, amazingly, conquered him.


	18. Recaptured Recounts

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 18 – Recaptured Recounts **

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon _and_ Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

Jake said goodbye to his parents after dinner and, for the first time in a long while, left his mother a goodbye kiss on the forehead, a gesture which startled her and garnered a broad, confused smile. Then he patted his younger sister on the head and jumped out the window, dragon wings taking him down thirteen blocks in no time at all.

He arrived at a five-storey apartment building and dropped onto the roof in his human form. The building was small, and sat squashed in a tight corner between a rundown bakery and a crooked street leading to a cul-de-sac. It was night, and the full moon painted the empty streets an eerie, cold blue. This part of town was largely deserted, populated by several street gangs and other wastrels of society, with little shortage of the magical sort. Jake knew it well.

Climbing down the fire escape, Jake counted two floors and three windows, then tapped quietly on the glass. Through the window was a small, poorly furnished room, and on the narrow bed sat a girl with thick, gilded tresses. At the sound, she turned, revealing sapphire eyes and rose-red lips set on a face as bright and radiant as the sun.

She would have stood and opened the window, but she couldn't, so Jake let himself in. As he climbed through, she smiled, her eyes sparkling. Jake felt his heart skip a couple of beats; he would have battled a legion of shade demons just for that smile.

"Hey, Rose," he said. "How's it hanging?"

Setting the book she was reading aside, Rose said, "It's hanging just fine, playboy." She tried to inch towards him, but he scooped her into his arms before she could display any sign of strain.

"Careful… Where do you wanna go?"

She pointed to a wheelchair sitting by her bedside table, and he set her in it, wheeling her back to her bed. He sat across from her and stared at her, breathing in her scent—roses and jasmine, pine and peppermint.

"How've you been?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Bored, mostly. It's school and home, over and over, with pretty much nothing in between. Sometimes I wish I could…" Her voice trailed away, and her eyes wandered to a pole weapon mounted many inches above her headboard. Perfectly polished, it shone in the light, the jade shaft reflecting its own glow. Its head ended in something resembling a wickedly-curved crab's claw, inlaid with a shimmering emerald stone.

The Huntstaff, the symbolic weapon of the Huntsclan, an underground group of highly-trained warriors who specialized in hunting down and capturing magical creatures, for the sole purpose of wiping out all magical life on earth. Once, they had been Rose's only family, but not anymore.

Jake reached out for her hand. A birthmark of a dragon snaked around her palm and wrist, and seemed to burn at his touch.

"One day you can, Rose," he said, his voice a thin whisper. "I promise."

Rose looked into his eyes, and Jake could tell she was daring herself to believe him. But she faltered, and laughed.

"No, Jake," she said. "I've had my moment, and it's over. Time to set the Huntsgirl's legacy aside."

He could think of nothing to say, so he didn't, just cradled her hand in his, stroking her knuckles with all the tenderness he could muster. Such gentle hands; who would have guessed they were trained to kill?

Jake thought about how they'd first met, those distant days in middle school, when life was life and not death, when the magical world still fascinated and frightened him. They seemed like an eon ago, an imagined existence drawn from fragments of a half-remembered dream.

A dream wherein his girlfriend could still walk and his best friends were not unfairly murdered by his lack of judgment, where he didn't live every horrible moment wondering what he could have done to prevent their deaths.

As if reading his mind, Rose placed a palm on his cheek. "It's not your fault."

He realized then that he was crying, the tears forming hot in his eyes. He wiped them off hastily, dignity superseding his emotional needs. "I wish you were right, but it is."

She made no retort, allowing him a moment to wallow, to remember.

Jake closed his eyes, and he was in the sewers again, on that fateful evening. It was their third stake out in two days, the first two having not gone according to plan. Spud and Trixie were beside him now, his best friends in the world—they stuck with him, knowing who he was, what he did, the dangers he faced as the American Dragon. He didn't know it then, but he took them for granted.

Tell them! Tell them how you feel, Jake Long! Tell them how insanely stupid and dangerous this was for them, and get them out of the sewers! Tell them to go home. Tell them. Tell them!

But no. The memory, vivid as it was, was just that—a fragment of a time long gone, unchangeable. Instead, Jake told them to split up at a junction, each one holding onto an end of tripwire twined from unicorn hair, while Jake stayed in the shadows, ready to pounce.

'Stay in sight," Jake told Spud. "Bad boy's gonna be hungry."

"Great," drawled Spud. "I'm bait _again_?"

Jake grinned. "Chill out, yo. I've got your back, and Rose's not too far behind. First sign of trouble, just give us the signal and we'll go all American Dragon style on our beast." He handed Spud a pair of enchanted golden chimes and thumbed his own, strapped to his belt.

"Okay, but you owe me one," said Spud resignedly, taking the chimes.

Trixie called out from the other end of the junction: "Hey Jakie! You sure man-lion's gonna come this way?"

"Don't sweat it, Trix. Rose's been tracking the Manticore for the past twelve hours. It'll come." Then, with a wink, Jake said, "Trust me."

Time passed, an hour, maybe two. Trixie and Spud had fallen asleep, bored with waiting. Jake watched them go hazy and fade through heavy eyelids, then awoke to the unison sound of cymbals clashing and a petrifying roar.

The dragon in him sprang forward from his hiding place in a burst of flame. Jake cut a corner, only to find the Manticore charging towards him, its grotesquely-misshapen human face baring fetid serpentine fangs.

It had Jake on his back in a matter of seconds, powerful paws pinning the dragon's wings to the grimy floor. Jake curled back and kicked forward, his reptilian body uncoiling like a spring. The Manticore was off him, and Jake followed through with a spurt of crimson flames and a flurry of swift strikes. Dazed and in pain, the monster tried to make a run for it, but Jake had his tail around the creature's neck. It took a burst of strength to lift the Manticore off its paws and into the wall, knocking it out.

"Yeah!" Jake cheered, thrusting his hands in the air as he reverted to human form. "Did you guys see that?"

He turned, then, realizing someone was calling his name between coughs. It was a forced voice, faint and weak. Heart thudding, Jake ran through the smoke and mist his fire had cooked up. It was only a handful of steps but the run felt like forever. He stopped short at the sight of three figures on the ground, barely outlined in the fog. The voice that was calling out to him belonged to one of them.

The memory quickly dissolved, and Jake could no longer hear nor see quite clearly. It was as if a violin played in the background, a song of melancholy and anguish, of rage and disbelief. Tears obscured his vision, and his own screams died in the horrible, horrible music. Trixie was in his arms, or was it Spud? It didn't matter…

Gone. It was all gone; his days as an honored hero, his legacy as the American Dragon. He had lost his standing in the Dragon Council, lost the trust of his old compatriots and allies. And he had lost his closest friends, stolen their very lives from them and their families.

"It's okay," said a voice, the same voice that had spoken his name in the sewers. "It's okay, Jake…"

Rose. She had reached out to embrace him at some point, and now he sobbed into her shoulder, drenching her sleeve.

"He's back, Rose," he muttered into her shoulder, between sobs. "He's back and I don't know if I'll be able to stop him…"

It took a while for the weight of his words to really strike her, and when it did, she found fear welling up inside her, for she knew exactly what Jake was talking about. His terrifying visage came into her mind, and she nearly choked. Biting back her fear, she continued to stroke his head.

"We could get the Council," she dared to suggest, though she could already predict his response.

He pulled away from her, his face sticky with tears, and shook his head violently. "What can I say?" he asked. "That the Dark Dragon's returned from the trap I put him in? They no longer trust me, and they definitely won't change their minds this time."

She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him towards her again, giving him a long, lingering kiss. Then, her forehead against his, she said, "You will find a way. You always do. I believe in you." And that was almost enough to relieve him of some torment.

Almost.

It would never be enough.

* * *

The metal door slid open with a swish as Betty Director crossed the long hall leading towards the Global Justice monitoring room for her usual sit-rep. There, several dozens of screens watched the world through remotely-accessed cameras for any signs of potential threats. These threats were analyzed and categorized into certain levels, and a response team would be dispatched depending on the severity of the situation. The monitoring room also allowed for communications between ground agents and higher command; there was little to nothing which escaped Global Justice's all-seeing eye.

It was Betty's pride and joy, for she had helped design and implement GJ's monitoring systems from the ground up. Her experience on the ground level made her input extremely valuable, even if the higher-ups failed to see it at the time. Still, Betty was patient, and cared little for recognition. Handling the situation was vastly more important than what the snotty bureaucrats thought.

Nonetheless, credit was eventually given where it was due. Betty climbed the ranks swiftly, eventually gaining chief position in Global Justice, but never forgetting her roots as a field agent. They respected her for that, because she understood what it was like to be in the midst of a firefight, to stare death in its gaping maw and come out broken but alive. When she made a decision, her subordinates could count on the fact that she knew exactly the kind of repercussions she and her troops were facing.

She was the boss, but she never stopped being a soldier. Those instincts never die.

And the same instincts were screaming in her now. Maybe it was the fact that she failed to recognize the sentries who stood guard at the entrances and exits, despite the fact that she had planned their rosters. Maybe it was how a handful of agents were closing in on her, their hands dangling close by their weapon holsters. Or maybe it was the well-hidden electro-net that hung on the high ceiling, waiting to drop the moment she stepped within range.

There was movement to her left, which she sensed rather than saw: an agent drawing his firearm. Betty did a quick calculation in her head and decided escape was tough, but sure as heck possible.

"Halt," the agent was about to say, but Betty didn't wait for him to finish. She spun towards the agent closest to her and slid behind him, one arm around his neck, the other reaching for his stun-gun. The man was taken aback, and despite his burly frame, struggled in vain against Betty's iron hold.

Betty opened fire before the other agents could react, stunning two of the troopers. She counted four more, then stunned her shield, dropped him and barrel-rolled out of the way.

The stun-gun blasts fell upon her like hail. She stayed close to the walls, using the sentries as shields then dropping them. She was fast, too fast for these greenhorns to even keep up with. Before they could load a magazine, she swiftly overpowered and disarmed them.

Soon she stopped calculating, ignored the logic and allowed instinct to kick in. She took fired wild shots at the electro-net, and by some chance managed to pop its trigger. The net descended upon two of her would-be captors, delivering a nasty shock. How many more? She didn't know, not with the sentries now joining her enemies' ranks.

Why were they doing this? Why were they after her? Was it mutiny or something much worse? They weren't out to kill her, no—they wouldn't be using stun-guns if that were the case. They meant to disable her, capture her. But for what reason?

Don't think. Focus on the situation at hand. Keep a level head and keep running.

She was almost at the door now, but expected it to seal up at her approach. True enough, a metal shutter came crashing down. But the shutter had ridges, and that was exactly what she needed. Using special adhesive pads in her gloves and boots, she clambered up the steel trap with all the agility of a trained ninja, ignoring the gnawing pain as several of the stun blasts found her back and legs.

She could see the vent in the ceiling now, and raised her blaster to make herself a quick exit. She was going to make it! Just a little bit more…

Steel ropes entwined themselves around her arms and legs, ripping her away from the shutter and threatening to tear her limb from limb. She was utterly paralyzed now, but still she struggled, the fighter in her not letting up. She was so close! If she could only reach the vent, she'd be able to make a hasty run for it and figure out why her own agents were turning against her.

A final stun blast to the back of her head finally knocked her out cold. In her fading subconscious, she thought to herself: she was gonna have to skip out on the sewer trip…


	19. Back to the Sewers

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 19 – Back to the Sewers **

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Fillmore _and_ Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

It was barely past sunrise when Kim and Ron arrived at a Manhattan back alley marked out by Fillmore on their digital map. 'X', however, didn't mark out the location of any buried treasure. Instead, Kim and Ron found themselves staring at a manhole cover circumscribed with indecipherable lettering. Kim hated to think what they could mean.

They were the only ones there for a while, having arrived minutes ahead of schedule. Travelling by jetpack was a dozen times more efficient than attempting to take on the city's morning traffic, and the new devices were much faster than the older ones Kim and Ron used.

"I'm really loving these!" remarked Ron, toying with the jetpack's shoulder straps.

Scanning the area, Kim found no creepy figure lurking in the shadows, or otherworldly monster spying on them from the rooftops. The scant windows to the dilapidated residential buildings flanking them on either side were boarded up, no light streaming through the cracks. She would have checked the dumpster parked against the wall, but the smell was enough to make her want to retch.

"Seems clear," she muttered, subconsciously tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

Ron turned to regard his girlfriend. She had her auburn hair up in a bun today, her spring green eyes behind a pair of Banana Republic shades. Over her battle suit, she wore a long-sleeved purple top with a utilitarian belt and black cargo pants. Ron beamed with approval and pride: she was smokin'.

"Calm down, KP," he said. "You look fine."

She removed her sunglasses and shot him a look of slightly-amused irritation at having misread her before breaking into an uncontrollable smile, which Ron caught and returned. He moved in to kiss her, but the sound of jetpack engines decelerating above them interrupted their little moment. Kim and Ron looked up to see Lilo and Stitch dropping in for a smooth landing, a pretzel-shaped contrail in their wake.

"Sorry we're late. Stitch insisted on taking a couple more rounds around the city," said Lilo as their jetpacks collapsed, stabilizers folding in and compacting into the main structure. She carried a large pouch around her waist, the trigger guard of an alien blaster peeking through the zipper. Stitch sported a similar pouch, but his was integrated into his jetpack. Lilo tugged at her shoulder straps just as Ron had done. "Gotta love these."

"I know!" exclaimed Ron in agreement, tossing her a high-five.

Kim was about to ask if Lilo had seen Jake on her way over when a foreboding shadow blotted out the dawning sunlight overhead. Kim, Ron, Lilo and Stitch looked and watched as the fearsome beast of legend descended upon them, powerful wings stretched to their maximum span, dark mane billowing in the wind. As the dragon's clawed feet touched the ground, the boy within emerged in a spurt of fire, taking the creature's place.

They were so at awe by his entrance that they almost failed to notice the black-and-gold engineering marvel trailing not far behind. The Beak's rocket-powered thrusters roared to a halt as he turned to regard them, speaking in Phineas' voice, "Hey guys! How's it hanging?"

"I thought it was the other brother in the suit," remarked Lilo.

Cogs and pistons shifted as the Beak shrugged. "He's got a meeting, but he'll be keeping an eye out for us through the suit." He handed each of them a custom-made earpiece; they put them on and were surprised to find the devices automatically conformed to the shape of their ears. "These will help us keep in contact with each other, as well as with Ferb and Wade."

"Me like," said Ron, grinning.

"Are we all ready?" asked Jake.

"I don't know about the rest but Rufus and I are ready to kick butt!" Ron pulled his naked mole rat out of his pocket and held him in his palm. Rufus was wearing the strength-enhancing ring around his waist like a belt, and growled menacingly as a show of force.

"We're ready, too!" said Lilo. Standing vigilantly by her side, Stitch barked his eager agreement.

Then the dumpster behind them moved on its own volition, sliding aside to reveal a hole in the ground. They all jumped in surprise as Fillmore climbed up from a ladder inside the hole. He sauntered over to join them, and the dumpster returned to its original position, as if it had not moved at all.

"Looks like we're all set," said the Captain. "Let's move out."

"Wait," said Kim. "Where's Betty?"

"Monogram reassigned her, last I heard. He said he was taking her off the case. I didn't pry."

Kim raised an eyebrow. "You, of all people, didn't pry?"

"We can talk about Betty's absence if you'd prefer not to go down in the sewers," replied Fillmore, his voice flat.

For a while it seemed like Kim would lash out at him; his smug arrogance permeated the air like expired cologne. Instead, she locked her eyes onto his, thickening the tension with her steely gaze.

Jake coughed, cutting the uneasiness with the sound of his voice. "Look, we play as a team. No need to go at each other's throats, yo."

Fillmore turned to Jake, then back at the others. "You're right," he said. "We should focus on the task at hand."

"Are you sure this is the spot?" Jake asked, pointing at the manhole cover. Seeing the alien script, he frowned a little.

The Captain nodded. "This was the entrance we first used to access the sewers. A gang fight happened in the vicinity, of the magical kind, and it lead us here, to our first clue." He must have spotted the look on Jake's face, because he added, "Why?"

"This text," Jake said, kneeling down to touch the metal glyphs, "I've seem them before. They're used for spell-casting, and this appears to be some sorta portal spell."

"You mean going through that manhole is like going through some magic portal?" asked Lilo.

"That's right."

"A portal to what, exactly?" Ron said.

Jake shook his head. "Don't know. Wherever it leads, we gotta be careful. Magical creatures get much more powerful in their own realm. Stay alert."

He lifted the iron manhole cover with disturbing ease and set it aside. Then, one by one, they descended the ladder and into the sewers.

It was dark and dank down below. A constant stream of sewage water flowed endlessly through the massive tunnels, tainting the air with the smell of the city's waste. It reeked of methane and ammonia; the odors boiled up to a mix, assaulting the senses without relent. Unseen things scurried through the shadows and crevices in the walls, making loud squeaking noises at the six newcomers intruding upon their playground. And above all that, there was a humming in the air, an electrical current that left Kim's hair standing on end.

They moved through the tunnels quickly, weapons drawn and at the ready. Kim tried her hardest not to think or breathe in the noxious plague that was adrift in the air. She resisted the urge to pinch her nose or cringe or throw up, and distracted herself by looking around. Bad idea. There was little to the scenery to alleviate her discomfort, so instead her eyes wandered to the people around her.

Everyone else seemed equally ill at ease in the sewers. Lilo had her nose clamped with a hairclip, and Stitch stayed far from the water, clinging to the walls like a spider. Ron made sounds and faces of blatant disgust at the sight of questionable blobs floating down the sewage stream. Even Phineas, protected by the Beak armor, quivered from point to point.

Only Jake and Fillmore appeared unaffected by the repulsive atmosphere; in fact, they almost seemed—if it were even possible—at home here. Jake walked with a keen sense of purpose, and Fillmore, who was leading the group, moved with such ease, Kim would have thought he was taking a casual stroll in the park.

She found herself at once put off by the Captain's air of lackadaisical arrogance. She hadn't spent much time interacting with Fillmore, come to think of it, but that small quarrel back in the alley really got to her. She was asking a genuine question; Betty Director wasn't one to up and quit on a mission without even notifying her teammates. Surely there was no other crisis big enough to supersede this one, and if there were, Wade would have informed Kim about it. Surely there was no need for Fillmore to snap at her like that, unless…

Kim pushed the unsettling thought aside. Tapping her wristwatch, she activated a holographic map of the city's sewage system. An integrated GPS tracking device displayed Kim's exact location via a red dot, which blinked along the complex web of blue lines as she moved deeper into the sewers.

"Hey, how far down do we have to go?" Ron asked aloud. He had a map display activated as well, though it was upside-down. "And can someone tell me how to work this thing?"

Stitch hopped down to his shoulder and input some commands into an onscreen keyboard. The display swiveled right-side-up and magnified, focusing on a single, winding path through a series of tunnels and junctions.

"Eh, path!" articulated Stitch before leaping back onto the ceiling.

"Look at that!" Ron said appreciatively. "Thanks, Stitch!"

They walked on for close to an hour without incident, the map affording them the luxury of not having to hesitate even at forks and cross-junctions. There were occasional pauses, though, when they came to sharp corners; Jake would move to the front of the group, signal them to halt and—repulsive as it sounded—sniff the air. Once he was certain there weren't any nasty surprises waiting around the bend, he allowed them to proceed, falling in step behind Fillmore.

They ascended a series of steps and entered a raised tunnel where the sewer stream thinned out and the stench became that much more bearable. The end of the tunnel split two ways, and the map directed them to the right.

Following the drill, Jake took point, halted them and took a good sniff. Already expecting nothing, Kim was about to move forward when Jake signaled them to pull back and huddle.

"What is it?" she asked when they had regrouped.

"Monkeys," was Jake's reply.

Kim was momentarily confused. "Monkeys?" she repeated.

Ron blanched. "Really? I thought we saw the last of Monkey Fist, may he rest in peace."

"How many?" asked Fillmore.

"About a dozen," Jake replied.

"I suggest we take a closer look," said Phineas. A tiny black box emerged from a catch in his suit's forearm, sprouted legs, and clambered along the walls. Simultaneously, on the Beak's other arm, a holographic screen appeared, displaying everything the robotic bug saw.

Jake was right; slightly more than a dozen chimpanzees hung from handholds on the sides of the tunnel, dressed in ninja garb. There was something weird about these ninja monkeys, though. For one thing, they didn't stick to the shadows, as they usually did in Kim and Ron's past experiences. Also, their eyes were, for lack of a better word, dead, lacking the intelligent spark that was always present in Monkey Fist's minions.

"They seem…possessed," Kim said.

Jake frowned. "Could be the Dark Dragon's influence, maybe?"

"Guys," said Phineas. "I think they've noticed us."

They didn't need the display screen to confirm that, because they could hear the primates rushing towards them from the corner. They spilled out like toxic waste from a piping bag, screeching and howling raucously. This was another anomaly—Fist's monkeys were highly trained in the art of stealth and subtlety; these monkeys were careless and noisy, and so utterly lacking in grace.

"Engage!" ordered Fillmore, springing the group into action.

Kim moved quickly, digging her heels into a ninja monkey's midrib, then pulling back to elbow the chimp coming up on her left. She took out two more monkeys, noting their sluggish movements and uncoordinated attacks. The monkeys were definitely out of sorts, their postures languid, blackened eyes unfocused. Had they somehow lost their direction, now that their master—who created, trained and empowered them—was out of the picture? And if so, who was controlling them now? Was it truly the Dark Dragon, as Jake had said, pulling strings from the shadows?

Soon outnumbered and outgunned, the chimps began backing into their hiding place. Kim and the others pressed forward, reducing the ninja monkey's numbers with great ease, charging into the right fork in the tunnels.

Then, abruptly, the monkeys got up and began somersaulting backwards, fading into the shadows. The sudden swiftness in their movements took everyone by surprise; the Beak opened fire with an energy pulse, but the chimps were gone in an instant, leaving seven bemused individuals standing in the sewers.

"Okay what just happened?" said Ron.

As if in response to his query, the ground below their feet shook and, with a resounding bang, gave way. A pit opened beneath them, swallowing them whole. They were falling so fast, it felt like their hearts had leaped into their throats and gotten caught, preventing them from catching a breath or even screaming.

"Everyone, jetpacks!" shouted Fillmore.

Kim somehow managed to locate her jetpack's activation strap and pulled hard. Her body jerked and lurched as the thrusters came on, cutting her fall. Looking around, she saw that Lilo, Stitch, Fillmore and Ron had also successfully activated their jetpacks, and were also hovering close by. Not far above, Jake had gone into dragon form, and Phineas' Beak armor had its own means of staying aloft. Kim allowed herself a sigh and laugh of relief, and the others did the same.

"That was quite a drop," remarked Phineas.

Gazing up, Kim saw that there was at least a good fifty feet between them and the great gaping maw through which they had fallen. She dared herself to look down, but couldn't make out how far the actual drop was; it seemed almost bottomless. Thank goodness for their jetpacks.

"We better get out before…" She hadn't finished her sentence when another bang sounded, and the ceiling crumbled. An entire block of steel and debris came rushing at them and Kim swallowed hard, her gut tightening as what little light remained was blotted out.

"Down! Down! Down!" screamed Jake, his serpentine body already extended and headed for the abyss.

"C'mon!" Kim called out, more to Ron than anyone else. She followed Jake down, reversing the downward thrust of her jetpack and greatly increasing her acceleration. Soon she was moving so fast that her lips were flapping wildly in the updraft, her ponytail pulling itself free from its band and whipping her face. She sensed the others around her and tried to call out to them, but her words were lost in the deafening roar of their descent. Right on their tail, the block of debris was giving sure chase.

Kim forced her eyes open long enough for her to see the stone ground rushing up to greet them. She caught sight of a tiny passageway in the wall. If only… She shouted a command to break left, hoping against the hope the others could hear her, then pulled a sharp turn for the hole in the stone wall. She didn't stop to look back or ensure that the others had followed her lead, not even when the tips of jetpack's stabilizers screeched and sparked unbearably against the worn stone.

A terrible crash echoed through the confined tunnel as the monstrous chunk of debris hit home. The sound was enough to cause Kim to falter. In reflex, her hand tightened around the throttle, pushing the thrusters beyond their limit. The engine explosion threw her forward wildly, and as one of the stabilizers finally gave way, Kim found herself ricocheting off the tight walls.

With its dying burst of power, the Fletcher-&-Flynn jetpack flung her forward before failing completely. Head spinning, Kim's vision blurred as she emerged from the passageway, spying a large, circular room dug right out from the stone.

Then her body fell hard against grime and gravel, and before she knew it, her world went dark.


	20. Unmasking the Monster

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 20 – Unmasking the Monster**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Fillmore, Dave the Barbarian _and_ Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. Neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist._

Ron stirred, and almost yelled out Kim's name. The last thing he could recall was the sight of her hitting the ground and him attempting to speed up after her. Something must have gone wrong with his jetpack, because he was barrel-rolling headfirst across the floor.

He wasn't sure for how long he had passed out, but his head throbbed and everything hurt. He struggled to stand, relieved to find his legs still worked, though they ached pretty badly. A thick fog hung all around him; he could barely see beyond a couple of feet, though he could make out silhouettes in the haze.

Which one was Kim's?

As he squinted to look, he realized there was light in the cavern, ethereal light which seemed to come from no discernable source, and bathed the slime-slick stone in an eerie, turquoise glow. Yet the shadows still ran thick in the nooks and crevices, untouched by the light. If anything, the greenish beams only intensified the darkness.

"Kim?" he called out, the sound muffled by a string of coughs. "Kim, anyone—where are you guys?"

No response. None at all, save a quiet laugh that Ron could only describe as creepy and sinister. It went on, uninterrupted, for many long seconds, building up to a steady crescendo before coming to an abrupt pause. Then a voice echoed through the cavern.

It said, "At long last, the heroes have gathered."

The fog began to thin out, just enough for Ron to make out an altar of some kind at the far end of the cavern. It was a rectangular table, carved out from the very stone itself. The same green light bounced off its surface, revealing several artifacts that Ron could not identify. And surrounding it, smothering the altar like a protective parent, was what remained of an ancient shrine, built like a pavilion above and around the stone table.

The sound of his teammates stirring tore Ron's attention away from the altar. He heard Jake calling out, "Is everyone okay?"

"I'm fine, but I can't find Kim!" Ron shouted immediately.

"No big," Kim groaned. "I'm fine, too."

The sound of pistons disengaging and wires sparking told Ron that the Beak was nearby. "The suit's sustained some damage, but nothing major," said Phineas.

Behind him, Stitch moaned, "Oww my head!"

To which, Lilo replied, "Stitch and I are good to go."

"Where's Fillmore?" Jake asked.

That was when the fog cleared, and Captain Fillmore stood before them, upon a pedestal set up behind the altar. Ron wondered how he had missed the Captain standing there, even in the mist, for he seemed so ridiculously obvious now, for some odd reason. In fact, he seemed to fill the whole room, and Ron couldn't stop staring at him.

Then Ron realized why: a malicious aura surrounded the Captain, outlining him in deep shades of purple. It was faint, but definitely visible, twisting all around Fillmore like smoky tendrils.

"Fillmore?" Jake said dumbly. "What are you doing?"

When Fillmore replied, he spoke with a rumbling voice not his own. "Know this, American Dragon: I could have killed you at any time. But I wanted you and your friends here, in my sanctuary, so you can relive your ultimate failure again and again in oblivion."

Ron glanced at Jake—he was trembling. Utterly bemused, a look of dawning realization was creeping up on the dragon boy. And Ron, clueless as he had been in countless other situations, was also starting to get it.

"You're the Dark Dragon…" Jake whispered.

"Talk about a plot twist!" remarked Phineas.

Fillmore laughed mirthlessly. "This body is but a vessel, a weak mortal frame to house my inexhaustible spirit." He paused then, his expression darkening considerably. When he finally spoke again, his tone was filled with malice: "I spent much time and energy clawing my way back from the hellhole dimension you trapped me in, so much so that when I returned to the physical realm, my body was but a lifeless husk, and only a portion of my spirit made it through.

My power was greatly weakened, but I used what remained to call my shade demons to me. They nourished me back to health, but it was insufficient. I gathered the wastrels of the magical world to my aid, and they flocked to me like the sheep they are."

Ron could see the goblins and shade demons lurking all about them now, peeking out from the great stalagmites rising from the cavern floor. He gulped nervously, almost sensing their bloodlust.

The Dark Dragon continued, "My revitalization must have caused some ripples in the mortal world, for this meddling fool—" he gestured to Fillmore's body "—and his woman came sneaking about in the tunnels. What a wonderful opportunity! I feasted upon the girl and took this body to suit my own needs. I looked into his memories and realized what authority and knowledge he had access to, knowledge which would allow me to rebuild my body and return to full power! Don't you see, American Dragon? The forces of the universe presented me with this great gift. I am _destined _to get my revenge!"

He broke out in a horrible cackle, whatever insane humor tickling him also causing the purple tendrils to quiver uncontrollably. All around him erupted a cacophony of sounds—the minions of the dark lord joined in their master's elation, grunting and hooting and cheering.

Amidst the discordant chorus, Dark Dragon threw up his hands and roared, "Behold: the Dimensional Rift Inducer!"

The cavern rumbled, and Ron and the others spun around to see the stone ground behind them parting, allowing the Dimensional Rift Inducer to emerge. The gargantuan contraption was shaped like a ring, its metallic exterior inscribed with the same alien text they had seen on the manhole cover. Large nodes and bulbs lined the inner side of the machine, which stood on a wide platform raised several inches above the ground.

"So you razed an entire village down in order to get plausible cause to gain access into my facility in order to get the plans for the Dimensional Rift Inducer?" said Phineas, hardly pausing between words. "Wow, evil, but impressive."

"Take it down!" cried Jake, already exploding into dragon mode.

Fireballs, energy blasts and plasma beams bombarded the machine, but none of it even came close to the Inducer. When the smoke cleared, a vortex of shade demons, twisting and writhing around the machine, solidified into plain view. There must have been thousands of them; the demons' combined screeches made their ears ring as they circled the Inducer, safeguarding their master's key to victory.

"Well, that didn't go so well," noted Phineas.

Jake grunted angrily. "Blast them with all the lights you got!"

They tried, but their efforts were nullified by the sheer numbers the shade demons possessed. For every one they took out, two more would replace it.

"I could probably modify my solar emitters to create a light field strong enough to take them all out at once," Phineas suggested. "But it will take some time, not to mention cannibalize the suit."

"Do it!" shouted Jake, already rounding back on Fillmore.

But the Captain's body and the dark entity it contained were no longer standing there. How did the Dark Dragon escape Jake's senses?

A bolt of lightning crisped the air and struck Jake in the back, causing waves of immense pain through his body. The bolt chained, leaping from Jake to Kim and Ron, Lilo and Stifch, and Phineas in his Beak armor. Their bodies quivered in powerful spasms, paralyzed, as volts of electricity coursed through them.

Then someone cut off the power and they tumbled to the ground, like puppets with their strings cut off. Their bodies numb, they watched helplessly as Fillmore walked up to them, brandishing a broadsword that looked like it belonged in some museum.

The sword's blade sparked with electrical residue as the Dark Dragon said, "Behold, the Sword of Argon the Ageless."

He held up the broadsword proudly, as if showing off a prized possession. There was nothing much of the sword that could be boasted about, though. Nearly every inch of the weapon was covered in rust, save the hilt, which bore a grotesque, misshapen face on it. Ron thought he saw the face smile.

"I'm going to kill each of your friends, Jake Long," Fillmore said, his voice dripping with sheer sadistic delight. "Slowly and painfully. And I'll start with the imbecile."

"Hey!" Ron yelped as the Dark Dragon yanked his hair, so hard that it felt like his head might pop right out of his shoulder. He heard Kim cry out his name. He struggled against the Captain's hold, but his body was so overwhelmed with trauma that he could barely muster the strength to protest.

Eyes squinted, teeth gritted, Ron glimpsed the Sword of Argon as the Dark Dragon raised it towards Ron's neck. As pain wracked every fiber of his body, Ron moved his thumb over the ring on his index finger and stroked it, triggering the enhancer.

The Dark Dragon was bantering now, but Ron wasn't listening; newfound power surged through his body like a gushing stream, filling his muscles with strength he never thought he could possess. Without even thinking, Ron threw an uppercut which knocked the Dark Dragon right out of his speech, hard and fast. The monster in Fillmore's body released his grip, and Ron dropped to his feet, springing up quickly to catch the Dark Dragon off-guard, landing another clean hit to his jaw.

As the others watched on in surprise, Ron went for a third hit, then a fourth, war-crying all the way. But Fillmore caught the fifth and used Ron's momentum against him, throwing the blonde lad reeling.

"Infidel! You dare!?" bellowed the Dark Dragon, already raising the enchanted blade.

But Ron's burst of retaliation had sparked renewed strength in the others: Kim and Jake were the first to rush in, Kim opening with a snap kick to Fillmore's wrist, disarming him, and Jake following with a tail sweep. They didn't let up; flames licked at Fillmore's bald scalp, and plasma bolts tore holes in his starched militant uniform.

Fillmore was on the ground now, rolling quickly out of harm's way. The shadows in the rocks shifted and swept towards him, rising up like a tornado. The Dark Dragon's minions rushed to their master's aid, pawns forging a temporary distraction in an attempt to safeguard the king. As the shade demons formed a protective vortex around Fillmore, the goblins appeared from their hiding places, brandishing crude swords and spears. One of the goblins dashed forward, firing crude arrows wildly and forcing Kim to step back. It grabbed the fallen Sword of Argon and beat a quick retreat, ducking behind a rock to evade Jake's fireball.

"Damn it!" cursed Jake. "He has the sword!"

"I think we better take care of the horde," said Phineas as the goblins slowly closed in on them. "Any ideas?"

Helping Ron to his feet, Kim said, "Just one. Kick butt!" She had shed her outer clothing, exposing the blue neon of her upgraded battle suit.

"Rock n' Roll, baby!" shouted Stitch, cocking his twin plasma cannons.

The battle of their lives was about to begin.


	21. Backs Against the Wall

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 21 – Backs Against the Wall**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Fillmore, Dave the Barbarian _and_ Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. Neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist._

The goblins tightened their formation around the group, rotten teeth bared. There must have been at least five dozen of them. There was battle lust imminent in their eyes, albeit mixed with hesitation and fear. It was hard to blame them; they were, after all, torn between their terrifying evil master and a ragtag band of super-powered teens.

"Take them down!" Jake roared, leading the charge.

The frontline of the goblin horde were the first to react, motivated by instinct and blood-thirst. Fire and steel and energy bolts danced across the cavern, piercing the gloom with an intensive fireworks display.

As the battle evened out, Phineas fell back. "Guys, hold them off while I try to recalibrate the solar emitter!"

"Why can't we just blow up the roof or something?" Ron asked.

"No can do," replied Phineas. "Readings indicate we're right beneath a major shopping district. Bringing the roof down could wind up harming hundreds of innocent civilians."

"They sure have everything planned out," remarked Lilo as she worked her plasma rifle. "Anyone seen the sparking sword?"

Downing a trio of overgrown goblins, Jake said, "Yo, here's the plan! Phineas, work on your solar thing. Stitch, Lilo, Ron: keep the goblins away from Phineas. Kim, you get the sword. I'll make sure the Dark Dragon stays down."

"Get the sword? No big," said Kim, bounding over the raving goblins and activating her suit's solar emitter. She spotted the Sword of Argon quite easily, its electrical trail burning like a flare in the darkness, and plowed her way through the horde towards it.

She was almost within arm's reach of the sword—locked in the embrace of freckled goblin archer—when the goblin equivalent of Mike Tyson rammed her into a stalagmite. Grunting savagely, he gargantuan creature raised a spiked mace and sent it crashing over Kim's head. But the mace didn't meet its mark, stopped instead by the force bubble generated by Kim's suit, protecting the wearer from harm.

Seizing the momentary distraction, Kim lowered her shield and kicked off from the rock, pounding the monster's eyes with energy-wrapped fists. Battle suit rapidly accelerating her muscles, she fired a fusillade of punches into the goblin's gut; it was down before it even realized what hit it.

The archer with the sword had managed to put a fair distance between itself and Kim, running in the direction of the demon cocoon, wherein the Dark Dragon attempted to regenerate. It couldn't be allowed to get there! Whipping out her grappling gun, Kim took careful aim and fired: the hook caught hold of the archer's leg, tripping it and sending the sword through the air.

"Got it!" cried Jake, swooping in to catch the magic weapon.

Then one of the goblins got hold of Jake's tail, triggering a mad clamor for the key to the Dark Dragon's true return.

The sword bounced from hand to hand in a blue, so fast that all that the only way to track it was to trace the energy contrail it left behind. The goblins passed the sword quickly and urgently, stalling its pursuers using arrows and glaives. Jake, who had multiple arrows lodged in his scales, sounded the command: "Everyone, grab the sword!"

The ensuing rabble was nothing less than insane: hands, gauntlets and claws stretched and scratched like fanatic zealots reaching for the ultimate divine prize. Jake had it in his tail at one point, but lost it to a pitchfork-wielding goblin. Pitchfork was punched out by Ron, who was tripped by a goblin wearing nothing but a loincloth around its waist. Stitch bowled loincloth-guy right over, but caught the sword by its blade. The resulting shock gave a trio of goblins the chance to dive in a pick the weapon right up. They were stopped by Lilo, who plastered each of their faces with multiple plasma bolts.

"I have the sword, guys," said Lilo, bending to pick up the sword.

Like a flock of starved ravens, shade demons descended upon the sword in unprecedented numbers. Lilo screamed in terror, falling on her bum as the shade demons disappeared along with the Sword of Argon.

Then, just like that, the battle came to a halt. A startled Phineas swore into the comm.-link, drawing everyone's attention to the Dimensional Rift Inducer where the Dark Dragon, still wearing Fillmore's skin, stood behind a raised console. In his hands was the Sword of Argon, which glowed a deep, thrumming cyan. Stupefied, they watched as the Dark Dragon slid the blade into a slot on the console, supercharging the Inducer with massive amounts of energy.

The bulbs and nodes on the machine lit up simultaneously, making loud beeping noises that were drowned out by the sound of the Dark Dragon's mirthless guffaw. In response to the light, the shade demons parted, though ever so slightly. Still they held together, their will bent to that of their master's, and all their master wanted right now was to return to full power. The air crackled as the pressure within the cavern increased significantly; the Inducer was charging up, slowly but surely.

"Guys!" Phineas shouted through the comm.-link. "We have less than ten minutes before the Rift Inducer reaches full power. It's now or never!"

Jake gritted his teeth. "If we can't blast through the shade demons, we'll go for the man himself!"

But the Dark Dragon's minions, dim-witted as they were, were prepared for this. Deeply motivated by their master's impending return, they resumed their assault, their strikes twice as brutal, movement twice as quick. Freeing himself from a stranglehold, Jake took a quick survey of the battle and felt despair creeping up on him.

In no time, the horde had Kim surrounded and trapped in her own force field through sheer numbers. A pair of mud golems had Ron pinned to the wall, his enhanced strength nullified by the thick coat of hardened mire that held him prisoner. Lilo and Stitch had run out of ammo and were now fending off rabid goblins with nothing but claws and swords. Only Phineas seemed to be holding his own, his pulse blasters set on automatic as he worked on recalibrating his armor.

Jake was at a lost. All his combat skills and instincts honed to near-perfection, and he couldn't think of a way out—couldn't find a way to save everyone. He thought of freeing Ron first, but mud golems were impervious to fire… What about Kim? But Lilo seemed a lot more vulnerable without her guns…

_What do I do! _

The moment's hesitation cost him gravely, for Fillmore had launched himself off the Inducer's console and towards the American Dragon, throwing both of them to the ground. Human fingers found the dragon's windpipe and squeezed hard; there was rage and bloodlust and a killer's training in that grip, and it was enough to immobilize Jake, even in dragon form.

Then the Dark Dragon pressed his face—Fillmore's face—close to Jake's ear, hissing, "You have no idea how much information I've had access to using this body. I know everything about you, Jake Long. All the places you've been, all the haunts you frequent. I know why you go out at night, hoping to get blood on your hands. I know where your parents and sister live, and I know about your friends' deaths. And I know all about _her_, that little hunter girl you're rearing as a pet."

That was the Dark Dragon's mistake, because the thought of Rose gave Jake the strength for a small burst of flame, singing Fillmore's ear. The Dark Dragon reeled back with a screech, releasing Jake, who wasted no time in reversing the situation. Now Jake had Fillmore's back to the wall, his claws a bare inch from the Captain's face.

"All those people in the village," said Jake. "Did you kill them?"

Fillmore's lips contorted into a smile. "I hate to admit it, but that wasn't me. I sought out the monkey man as soon as I found him in the Organization's database. He had plans for a Rift Inducer of his own, but it was incomplete. He lacked two things: Fletcher & Flynn's genius, and a power source. I fed him the location of the Sword of Argon and gave him the know-how needed to summon a Monkey Daemon. The pathetic village never stood a chance."

The Dark Dragon was still smiling even as anger boiled in Jake's heart. It wasn't enough that the fiend had threatened the people he loved; he made sport of it. The darkness inhabiting Fillmore wasn't just a shadow—it was black as pitch.

Overwhelmed by fury and disgust, Jake flung Fillmore towards and through the wall, leaving a man-sized hole in the wall. Jake stepped through the hole, fangs and claws bared. But that did little to faze the Dark Dragon, who lay on his back and continued to laugh.

"When the lot of you came together, I knew that you would have gotten in my way. I needed _you_, American Dragon—I craved vengeance sorely—but the others are expendable. The felwing was supposed to get rid of them, but failed miserably. The strigoi girl, however, served her purpose well, providing an ample distraction while I stole the Inducer's plans from the Grid Room."

The memory of the fight in the Grid Room flashed in Jake's mind: Fillmore, lying broken and beaten by the computer console, his arm twisted behind him in just the right position to reach the access ports, while Alisha contended with Jake and Betty.

Oh, dear lord. Betty.

"What did you do to Director?" Jake asked, fearing the answer.

Fillmore smirked. "That one-eyed vermin is under quarantine. Unfortunately, Captain Fillmore lacked the authority to warrant an execution."

Good, she was still alive. Jake allowed himself to breathe a little easy. But his eyes met the Dark Dragon's and the anger rushed up his throat, spicy and bitter.

"I'm gonna kill you, you sick monster."

At this, the Dark Dragon sprang to his feet and laughed a genuine laugh. "Oh, American Dragon, you have no idea how much you underestimate me."

Then the Dark Dragon opened his mouth and from it bloomed a spurt of purple flames. The intense heat sizzled the very air and burned through Jake's dragon scales, forcing him to back away in shock and pain.

Kicking Jake in the chest, the Dark Dragon brought them both back to the thick of the main battle. The purple flames danced and stretched from Fillmore's mouth, searing the stone and everything it touched.

Ducking and dodging for his life, Jake pressed down hard on his earpiece and yelled, "Yo Phineas! The Dark Dragon's got some insane firepower. Any time now!"

Phineas hesitation was anything but comforting. "Well, I sorta gave up on recalibrating my solar emitter."

"What!?" That was Kim, screaming. "What's the sitch? What have we been stalling for?"

"Tell me you have a plan, man!" Jake screamed, taking to the air. He aimed a couple of fireballs at Fillmore; it took him a while to realize the Dark Dragon was making a beeline for the Dimensional Rift Inducer. "Phineas, do something!"

"AT LAST!" Fillmore roared, his face twisted in sick delight.

Multiple voices screamed in unison, chorusing, "No!"

Too late.

The portal opened, and all hell broke loose.


	22. How to Tame a Dragon

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT  
Scene 22 – How to Tame a Dragon**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Fillmore, Dave the Barbarian _and_ Kim Possible_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of _Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. Neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist._

The portal opened, ripping apart time and space, and the young heroes peered into infinity. Through the cosmic maw, Jake and the others glimpsed a myriad of worlds and realms: on a mountain which pierced the heavens, a pantheon of godlike beings watched over an ancient civilization that no longer worshipped them; in a jungle untouched by time, a man raised by apes stood valiantly against the dark forces that lurked in his mystical home; light-years away, a battalion of trained rangers guarded the spaceways against intergalactic threats.

Awe-inspiring and completely terrifying, the inter-dimensional portal seethed and surged, drawing in and expunging energy uncontrollably. The colorful worlds behind the veil of the Rift Inducer began to meld together, congealing quickly into a dark, expanding patch. A thunderous noise shook the air, and this time the shade demons finally gave way, scattering as electrical tendrils reached out towards Fillmore's floating form.

With his dragon sight, Jake could see the Dark Dragon's demonic aura quite clearly. The snaking wisps of purple smoke connected with the Inducer's fingers, supercharging the Dark Dragon's aura till it radiated an intense shade of violet.

"The Dark Dragon returns, in fullness of power!" boomed the fiend of the magical world. Gathered before him, the goblin horde began chanting in guttural tones, raising their spears rhythmically in deep anticipation. So transfixed were they by their master's rise to glory that they didn't even react when Jake gave the order to attack in full force.

"Take him out now!" he roared, expunging a long, fiery breath. The flames licked the shadow of the Dark Dragon's aura and almost seemed to shy away, dissipating before any real damage could be done.

Kim took a more direct approach, leaping towards the Dark Dragon with fists clenched. She launched several power hooks in quick succession, but nothing seemed to faze the Dark Dragon, who seemed in some sort of trance. A feedback of dark energy threw Kim back and into Ron's arms.

"Gotcha, KP!"

In spite of herself, Kim smiled. "My hero…"

Flanking the Rift Inducer, Phineas released a fusillade of missiles, pulse blasts and laser beams, but the flood of shade demons that came swooping in prevented any of them from hitting their true target. Exhausted of power, the Beak armor shut down. "I'm out, guys," said Phineas. "I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize when you're among ohana," said Lilo. "You did your best."

Stepping up beside Jake and Lilo, Ron smirked. "Now it's our turn." He turned to Stitch and said, "Fastball special, just like in the comics."

Stitch's face brightened instantly at the suggestion. The little alien nodded eagerly and curled up into a ball, bouncing into Ron's open hand. Taking a deep breath, Ron flung the blue orb of fur right towards Fillmore's face.

The dark aura around the Dark Dragon shifted and formed a small shield. Stitch bounced right off the protective force and ricocheted off the ground, knocking over some goblins like bowling pins. Still the Dark Dragon remained untouchable, unaffected.

Then a horrible buzzing filled the entire cavern, and Fillmore's body began to liquidate and contort. Out of the tall, ebony-skinned man morphed a dark lizard-like shape, all claws and fangs and elongated snouts. The mass kept growing, lanky limbs becoming muscled reptilian appendages, long tail erupting from behind. From the shoulder blades popped unnatural-looking protrusions which soon sprouted into large, draconic wings. A halo of fiery runes appeared around the half-formed mass, circumscribing it in purple flames. The dragon stood at nearly three times Jake's height; it reared back and unleashed a deafening roar, forcing both the goblins and heroes to clamp their hands over their ears.

Finally, the crimson, avian eyes of the Dark Dragon opened, and pupils like slits looked down upon the cavern and its inhabitants with bloodlust and insatiable hunger. Its gaze lingered from Ron to Kim, to a recovering Stitch. It turned to Lilo and Phineas. Finally, it settled on Jake, and the Dark Dragon smiled cruelly.

"Jake Long," spoke the demon, his voice soaring above the hum of the Rift Inducer. "At long last, my vengeance is at hand."

If the Dark Dragon were expecting Jake to cringe or wet himself, he was sorely disappointed. Because not only did Jake show any sign of fear; he smirked.

"I'm sorry, homey," said Jake. "But you lose."

Jake would have killed to photograph the Dark Dragon's perplexed expression. He could see the denial in the dark lord's blood-red eyes, even as his black scales began to disintegrate into fine dust. The body granted by the Rift Inducer was now being sucked back into where it came from. The Dark Dragon roared indignantly.

"What did you do!?" he demanded as both his forearms disappeared completely. "Tell me!"

Jake nodded towards Phineas. "Tell him, genius."

"While I was trying to 'recalibrate' my armor," said Phineas, marking the air with invisible inverted commas, "I had Ferb and Wade upload a virus into the Dimensional Rift Inducer. It took some time to get past the failsafe, but did you forget that we were the ones who designed the darn thing in the first place?"

The Dark Dragon's wrath peaked, and he exploded: "I will kill you for this! I will kill you all!" He fired a blast of purple flames at the group, but they moved quickly out of the way. The poorly-directed jet of fire seared a small group of goblins instead, drawing little attention from their brethren.

"Game over, Dark Dragon dude," said Ron. "Boo ya!"

With a roar which died into a pathetic screech, the Dark Dragon's fast-fading body quickly broke apart. The limbs returned through the cosmic portal first, followed by his tail, then belly and head. The echoes of his curses and oaths could still be heard even as the last of the dark lord faded into oblivion as the Rift Inducer, with a drone, shut itself down. Their source of existence extinguished, so too, were the shade demons, becoming little more than wisps of smoke.

As Ron had said, it was game over.

Jake took a second to let it sink in and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Could he truly believe it? The Dark Dragon was gone—hopefully for good, this time. Then he turned to the goblin horde who had been watching in disbelief with their mouths agape, and his friends turned as well.

"Two choices," said Jake, loud enough for the entire horde to hear him. "Leave now, disappear from my sight, or face us and die."

The cowardly goblins didn't have to be told twice. They turned and scrambled, disappearing through secret tunnels and escape routes; it would seem that they were prepared for their master's defeat, no matter how much they believed in his power.

"Harsh," Kim remarked. "But effective."

"Guys, look!" exclaimed Lilo.

They all turned back to where the Dimensional Rift Inducer was and gasped collectively. In the haze were two figures, as blurry as the smoke. One was a woman with hair cropped to her jaw line and eyes alive with intelligence, even in the afterlife. There was a sort of sophisticated elegance to her, and an abnormal prettiness to her square face—it was an acquired taste, Jake figured. The other figure was Fillmore, eyes no longer hidden behind his glasses; his hand was locked in the woman's, and they were both smiling gently, kindly.

"Thank you," said the ghostly figure of Fillmore. Then they disappeared, Fillmore and his partner, Ingrid. They both faded into the smoke and a shaft of white light, even though there was no real light source anywhere in the cavern.

The gathered heroes held their breath for a long while. Finally, powering down, Jake sank to his knees. There were tears running down his face, and he fell on all fours. The others didn't do anything to stop him. They, too, were exhausted, in pain, but most of all, relieved.

It was over. The Dark Dragon was gone and his army was scattered.

They had won.

_A/N: Hey guys! I know this is a pretty short chapter for an ending to the big battle, but I really wanted it to resolve in this manner. This isn't exactly the last chapter, as there's still a short epilogue to go. I do hope you'll stay tuned!_


	23. Start of Something New

**THE DISNEY EXPERIMENT****  
****Scene 23 – The Start of Something New**

_DISCLAIMER: This Scene contains characters and references from Disney's_ American Dragon: Jake Long, Lilo & Stitch, Fillmore, Kim Possible _and_Phineas & Ferb_. I do not own any of these characters. For storyline purposes, the crossover episodes of_Lilo & Stitch _never took place in this continuity. And apparently, neither did the 'stoning' of Monkey Fist (my bad)._

"C'mon on, Ron, we're gonna be late!"

"I'm coming!" shouted Ron Stoppable.

With growing impatience, Kim Possible watched as her boyfriend emerged from the bathroom door, looking like he had just woken up, his unkempt blonde hair standing on stubborn ends.

"You took half an hour to look like _this_?" she asked incredulously.

Ron bore an expression of sincere disappointment. "You don't like it?"

She walked over to where he was and smoothed down his hair with her palm, wiping off a thick layer of gel. "That's better."

"Thanks," he said, smiling.

Packing up their stuff, the young couple got into the car and took a short drive down to the Middleton National Park, a quaint stretch of greenery between Middleton and Upperton, which sat in wondrous contrast to the concrete jungle around them.

It was early morning, and the sun beamed generously down upon the windswept fields. Two other groups of people were already at the park: Lilo and Stitch, and the boys from Fletcher & Flynn's. Stitch was warring with a pack of squirrels while the boys were in the midst of setting up a picnic mat; Kim had to admit she was a little disappointed when they didn't do it with the help of robots or some sort of levitation device. Their pet platypus sat lazily under a nearby tree, fast asleep.

When Kim and Ron arrived, Ferb was just about finished with the mat. They waved at one another. "Hey guys," said Kim. "Where're the rest?"

"On their way," replied Phineas. "Is Wade coming?"

Kim shook her head. "He's busy hacking into the Pentagon to look for top-secret data regarding some illegal genetic experiments of the alien kind."

Phineas blinked. "Sounds fun. What'd you guys bring?"

"Nachos!" said Ron, displaying his and Kim's offering for the potluck proudly. "And dip!"

Stitch must have smelled the cheese, because he retreated from the squirrels immediately and rolled over to where Ron was, his eyes wide with expectancy. Rufus emerged from Ron's pocket and made angry squeaking noises at the alien dog, staking claim to his nachos.

"Calm down, you guys," Ron said, keeping the basketful of chips and dip out of their way. "Plenty to go around."

They laid out the food and sat down for their picnic. Other than the nachos, there was mashed potatoes, lamb kebabs, shrimp, peanut-butter and jelly finger sandwiches, as well as apple cider kept ice-cold by F&F's patented portable cooler—the works. They waited for about ten minutes, then conveniently decided that the food would get cold if they waited too long. Half the finger sandwiches were gone by the time Major Monogram arrived with Carl and Betty Director, both dressed in civilian attire.

"Betty!" Kim exclaimed. They had all learned of her momentary incarceration, and she, personally, had been quite worried. No doubt, she trusted that Betty was the kind of woman who could definitely take care of herself, but it made her shudder to think what sway the Dark Dragon held over Global Justice, to make the entire organisation turn against their leader like that.

"No worries, Kim Possible," said Betty, as if reading Kim's mind. "All's well. The Dark Dragon had stirred up quite a mutiny, but I've put things in order. As I always have." She winked with her good eye, though with her eye-patch it could have just been tired, exaggerated blinking.

Monogram coughed. "Well, I did have a hand in getting you out."

"You definitely did, sir," said Carl. "Without you, we'd never have gotten the security clearance to free Miss Director. But then again, I myself also have said security clearance."

Monogram's brow wrinkled with annoyance at his aide's words. He snapped, "Alright, Carl! No one asked for your opinion."

The two officers and the intern sat down as, from the direction of the lake, two figures moved slowly towards the picnic site. One was clearly a boy with spiky hair, dressed in a maroon jacket and faded jeans. He was holding on to the other slender, more feminine silhouette. Her long curls were tied up in a neat ponytail and her eyes shone a mesmerising sapphire. She moved with some difficulty, which was to be expected from anyone using crutches.

While Stitch wolf-whistled cheekily, Lilo was the first to greet Jake Long and his plus one: "Hey Jake! Who's your lady friend?"

"Hi, everyone." said Jake, rather sheepishly. "This is Rose."

He helped her to sit down and, after placing his pork buns in the spread, they began the meal. They talked about the weather and each other, and shared about their own individual adventures. Some stories were met with expressions of disgust or horror, but most merited laughter and awe. Monogram shared embarrassing anecdotes, mostly involving Carl, and the earlier adventures of Fillmore. When he was done, they paused for a moment of silence and toasted cider in his memory.

With Stitch providing the sound effects, Lilo told them about the first time she met Stitch, how he had been an illegal alien experiment created for evil, and how he worked his way to becoming a decorated hero of the Galactic Alliance. Kim and Ron shed some light on the enigmatic Monkey Fist, as well as the whole gallery of villains they had encountered over the course of their high school years.

Then they listened intently as Jake told them more about the magical world, how the Dragon Council saw it as the duty of dragons to maintain the fragile balance between magical creatures and humans, and how some sought to destroy that balance. Then he told them about the Manticore, about Trixie and Spud, and they shed tears and sympathies for two people they had never met before.

After a while, Rose, the platypus and Carl went off to the lakeside to feed ducklings, and Stitch resumed his game of combating squirrels. This time, however, the little alien had Rufus the naked mole rat on his side.

"She finally agreed to do physio," said Jake, his eyes never leaving Rose. "She's strong, and getting stronger every day."

"She's gonna make it," assured Kim. "I'm sure of it."

Jake smiled appreciatively, and it would have gotten awkward if Monogram hadn't coughed.

"Something in your throat, Major?" asked Lilo.

"There is some debriefing I need to do with you guys," said Monogram. "First of all, great job, all of you. I'm sure the people of Argon's village will rest easy now that the, err, Dark Dragon has been subdued. I would offer you all permanent jobs in the Organisation but I know you guys don't really swing that way, if you know what I mean."

"Let's just keep things free and easy for now," said Ron.

Monogram nodded. "Well, we've retrieved the Dimensional Rift Inducer as well as the Sword of Argon. Both are safely under lock and key in the Org."

"Shouldn't we get rid of those things?" asked Phineas, genuinely concerned. "We wouldn't want them falling into the wrong hands."

"They will be destroyed, soon as we de-process them," said Betty flatly. "We don't know what kind of traps the Dark Dragon might have set. One wrong move, and we could spark another apocalypse."

"Right," Monogram continued. "That said, Fillmore's name will not be tarnished; it was clear he was possessed by an external force. We're keeping an eye out for the Dark Dragon, and if he comes back, we'll knock him right out again. All in all, you guys have saved the world, not for the first time, I'm sure."

Betty said, "Just goes to show, when a group of outstanding people come together, they can accomplish anything."

"True that," said Jake, sipping his cider.

Just then, Kim's wristwatch Kimmunicator beeped. She tapped the screen and brought Wade's holographic face to life.

"What's the sitch, Wade?"

In as many complicated words as possible, Wade explained the 'sitch', and Kim and Ron exchanged a quick glance before turning to the others, posing a silent question.

Jake smiled. "You don't even have to ask, yo."

"Count me and Stitch in!" said Lilo excitedly.

Phineas turned to his brother. "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today."

Monogram sighed, but Betty just smiled.

The adventurers, the intergalactic heroes, the inventors and the dragon: this was the start of something totally new, and thoroughly exciting.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you all for your support and kind reviews. This story-my first fanfic-has been a wonderful journey for me. I hope you have all enjoyed this little adventure. Please let me know if you'd like to see more, and perhaps suggest a name for this ragtag team of heroes. Again, thank you and Merry Christmas :) _


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